Resilience as a strategy for struggling against challenges related to the nursing profession

Abstract

Stressors, such as work overload, role conflicts, lack of time, lack of self-care, poor job-related interpersonal relationships, feeling powerless to provide quality care, struggling with competing demands, death, conflict with doctors, peers and supervisors, and inadequate emotional preparation, can be negative, stressful, traumatic, or difficult situations or episodes of hardship for nurses. Situations or episodes of these types can also cause both physical and mental problems, such as fatigue, irritability, lack of concentration, unhappiness, depressive sensation, depersonalization, and emotional exhaustion. Despite all of these challenges, resilience enables nurses to cope with their work environment and to maintain healthy and stable psychological functioning. The aim of this review is to describe the concept of resilience, explain characteristics with which it is related and outline interventions to increase the resilience of nurses.