The impact of resilience training for supervisors on the development of resilience in physiotherapy students during internships in clinical practice: a non-randomized controlled questionnaire study

Physiotherapy is among the top ten professions facing a skilled labour shortage in Germany. Around 33% of students drop out annually. One factor is low resilience, especially during internships when students face patient-related stressors. Low resilience may hinder stress management and coping with setbacks. The aim of the study was to examine whether supervision by resilience-trained internship supervisors affects students’ resilience differently to untrained supervision. We also examined whether students with lower baseline resilience benefited more from the intervention than students with higher baseline resilience. Four internship supervisors received training on resilience and how to promote it. Resilience was assessed using a digital questionnaire, including socio-demographic data, the Conner-Davidson Resilience Scale − 10 (CD-RISC-10) and the Resilience Scale for Adults (RSA). The first measurement (t0) occurred at the end of the internship supervisors’ training, and the second (t1) two months later. Students supervised by trained internship supervisors formed the intervention group, those with untrained internship supervisors formed the control group. Data was analysed using JASP to identify significant changes and correlations. The intervention group showed a statistically significant improvement in CD-RISC-10 scores from baseline to follow-up, p = .009, d = 0.59. Between-group comparisons of change scores were statistically significant for both the CD-RISC-10 (p = .004) and the RSA (p = .038). Neither measure showed a statistically significant within-group change in the control group. In the intervention group, baseline resilience scores were negatively correlated with change scores for both the CD-RISC-10 (r = −.69, p < .001) and the RSA (r = −.59, p = .002), indicating that lower initial scores were associated with greater increases. The results of the study therefore offer initial insights into the resilience of the students and the possible effect of training the teachers. This study introduces the development of a resilience concept that could be developed with the help of additional research. The study was registered in the Open Science Framework on 17.09.2023 ( https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/3TMYW ). The study was also retrospectively registered in the German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS; DRKS00041437) on 02 September 2026.