Clinical Nurses' Resilience Skills for Surviving in a Hospital Setting: A Q-methodology Study

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Resilience relates to coping with stressful hospital environment. The purpose of this study was to identify the types of resilience skills of clinical nurses for surviving in a hospital setting. METHODS: The Q methodology was used as it helps analyze the participants' subjective perspective on each item. Participants were 32 registered nurses who sorted 38 selected Q statements that were then plotted on a normal distribution using a 9-point scale. The subjective perspectives on the resilience of clinical nurses were analyzed using the PC-QUANAL program. RESULTS: This study revealed four types of resilience in clinical nurses, accounting for 65.2% of the variance: Type I: Reality-harmonic type; Type II: Own will type; Type III: Professionalism-oriented type; and Type IV: Relation-oriented type. CONCLUSION: The present findings suggest the need to develop interventions for improving clinical nurses' resilience according to their types. Following further investigation of nurses' resilience, it may be necessary for organizations to develop several resilience strategies.