Self‐Management of Recovery: Implications for Nursing Practice

This article describes and discusses differences in responses to a 60‐item survey instrument, the Carolina Self‐Regulation Inventory (CSRI) from a selected sample of university faculty and staff. The CSRI was designed to measure the types of self‐regulation strategies (SRS) individuals use to facilitate their recovery from illness episodes. When the CSRI was developed, 1,306 university employees participated in the survey. Four hundred eighty (36%) employees classified themselves as faculty; 346 (26%), staff; 418 (32%), midlevel administrators; and 62 (6%), blue‐collar workers. This report focuses on the differences between the faculty and staff groups in the survey. Analysis revealed that the staff used a variety of strategies and had higher statistically significant means on the following CSRI subscales: visualization (t= 2.53, P > .01), self‐talk (t= 6.801, P > .001), and external attention deployment strategies (t= 4.08, P > .001). No significant differences were found between faculty and staff in the use of exercise and physical activity or interactive self‐regulation strategies. Higher‐educated faculty women tended to use fewer SRS when compared with female staff (F= 4.70; df= 8,819; P= .0009). Faculty women were similar to faculty men in their use of SRS. Female staff used significantly more SRS when compared with faculty of both genders and male staff (t= 2.81, P= .05). Nursing implications of self‐regulation nursing assessments are discussed in terms of nursing interventions and need for more research.