Essay On Discussion On Resilience In Nursing

 

Resilience in the nursing profession is a very essential element which governs the success of nurses in the longer run in their professional context (Lang et al. 2021). Nurses are facing huge burden in workplaces, heavy burn outs, and the two factors are exacerbating the rates of nursing retention in healthcare facilities around the world (healthtimes.com.au 2022). The paper will provide a brief of overview of resilience of nurses, its role in deciding success in the profession, and implementation strategy.

 

Resilience in the field of nursing refer to the ability of nursing professionals to adapt tough situations in professional settings, catering to external resources, managing adversity, and addressing change in a proper manner so that the best possible professionalism is achieved (healthtimes.com.au 2022). Resilience in nursing is also quite same philosophically compared to the resilience of elastic materials. When external stress in subjected to any elastic body, the body returns back its initial position out of resilience which is also the same when resilience in nursing is concerned. Ability of nurses in the direction of resilience is the ability of the professionals to quickly recover form a challenging or difficult situation (Badu et al. 2020). Moreover, resilience also refers to the ability to face tough situations with ease and marked confidence, keeping focus, and continuing to be hopeful and positive in the future so that the professionals can handle stress, burn-out, and challenging situations in clinical settings maturely. Over the course of past two decades, nursing professionals around the world are facing enormous challenges and hurdles in the clinical settings (healthtimes.com.au 2022).

 

 

These challenges and hurdles are forcing healthcare workers to leave their jobs and switch their careers. Dissatisfaction in the lives of nursing professionals is very common that effect their mental and physical health. Feelings of distress lead to negative professional quality of life that over 90% of the nursing professionals of the world are facing currently of which, Australia is no exception (Lang et al. 2021). Though the nation has a comprehensive and one of the best healthcare systems of the world, it faces huge challenges in terms of retaining most of the nursing professionals that passed nursing educations are on the way of becoming registered nurses (healthtimes.com.au 2022). There are three major factors that collectively impact nurse dissatisfactions namely secondary trauma, burnout, and compassion fatigue (healthtimes.com.au 2022).

 

 

Secondary trauma generates anxiety, depression, lack of job satisfaction, and even sleeplessness of nursing professionals. These symptoms create burnout, compassion fatigue, and even negatively influence safety outcomes of patients. Moreover, in cases when a lot of members of any healthcare team is facing burnouts, compassion fatigue, and secondary trauma, patient safety and care is compromised to a great extent (Kester and Wei 2018). Burnout is a common response of nursing professionals that is exhibited when they are subjected to ineffectiveness, cynicism, self-doubt, exhaustion, and other emotional and physical stressors. In care settings such as oncology, pediatrics, critical care, and high-stress care settings often produce burnouts among nursing professionals (Sanders 2015). Creation of excessive workload, emotional stress, and moral distress are common for nurse in current times (Badu et al. 2020). Moreover, 18% of the nursing professionals are facing challenges related to mental health and depression and the numbers are double compared to the other populace which is emblematic of workplace toxicity, burnouts, excessive burden during work, and long-term job dissatisfaction of nursing professionals (Devereux 2022). Nurses are very prone to face unique and stressful situation in over 80% of the clinical facilities of Australia due to high pressure situations and lack of adequate number of healthcare staff (Kim and Chang 2022). Thus, it is very crucial for the healthcare managers and policymakers to cater to work-life balance of nurses and providing them with adequate place for self-development, personal life and affairs management, recreational time, and extending the necessary physical, mental, emotional, and financial support in form or perks, salaries and incentives (Henshall, Davey, and Jackson 2020). Moreover, addressing stress management should be an option that needs to be inculcated right from early college days that nursing students could learn right from their initial years. However, when strategies for developing resilience among nurses are concerned, the focus should be based on practical and plausible strategies (Kim and Chang 2022). 

 

 

The most important strategy for nursing professionals is to develop and cultivate emotional intelligence right from a very early stage of their careers. Emotional intelligence in the case of nursing professionals refer to their emotional stability and maturity regarding how to respond to certain situations (Thomas and Revell 2016). In nursing education courses, students should be introduced with various tough and challenging clinical situations and educators should teach them how to generate adequate emotional intelligence. Working towards emotional flexibility, generating a positive outlook, and ensuring the required adaptability are covetable for all nursing professionals right from their student lives (Sanders 2015). Moreover, generation of skills such as empathy, sensibility, cultural competence, and understanding of diverse needs of the Aboriginal Australian community can satisfy the professionals in rural and semi-urban care facilities of the nation. Moreover, along with such necessary knowledge and development of apposite qualities such as empathy, patience, compassion, they need to be introduced with necessary interpersonal skills such as communication (Manomenidis, Panagopoulou, and Montgomery 2019). Nursing students are generally very much enthusiastic regarding their studies and career initially but with time after listening to dropped out students and seniors that faced negative experiences in their clinical facilities, they tend to quit sooner or later after being influenced by others. Furthermore, lessons of stress management should be parts of nursing education so that students become more apt and proficient in their profession (Foster et al. 2019).

 

 

Resilient nurses are very patient, they maintain positive relationships, accept that some of the situations they face are out of their control and hence, they need to act in a tranquil and composed manner. Nursing professionals that are very much willing to become resilient nurse should also need to keep a very long-term perspective along with sustained optimism and formative outlook for the future (Odom-Forren 2020). Additionally, practicing yoga and pranayama, mindfulness, and keeping a positive attitude for the future can make great difference. Being compassionate and kind towards others, altruism, practicing gratitude, and letting go of things that are out of one’s control are more practical ways that nursing students need to practice right form the very beginning of their education (Morse et al. 2021).

 

 

The paper provided a brief of overview of resilience of nurses, its role in deciding success in the profession, and implementation strategy. Resilience in nursing refer to the ability of nurses in the direction of resilience is the ability of the professionals to quickly recover form a challenging or difficult situation. Moreover, resilience also refers to the ability to face tough situations with ease and marked confidence, keeping focus, and continuing to be hopeful and positive in the future so that the professionals can handle stress, burn-out, and challenging situations in clinical settings maturely. Additionally, cultivating emotional intelligence, emotional flexibility, empathy, sensibility, cultural competence, and understanding of diverse needs of the Aboriginal Australian community can satisfy the professionals in rural and semi-urban care facilities are good ways to promote and instill nursing resilience. Furthermore, development of apposite qualities such as empathy, patience, compassion, they need to be introduced with necessary interpersonal skills such as communication, practicing yoga and pranayama, mindfulness, and practicing gratitude are practical and realistic strategies for catering towards nursing resilience. 

 

Badu, E., O’Brien, A.P., Mitchell, R., Rubin, M., James, C., McNeil, K., Nguyen, K. and Giles, M., 2020. Workplace stress and resilience in the Australian nursing workforce: A comprehensive integrative review. International journal of mental health nursing, 29(1), pp.5-34. 

 

 

Devereux, E. (2022) Nurses join health leaders to accept prestigious award from Queen | Nursing Times, Nursing Times. Available at: https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/leadership-news/nurses-join-health-leaders-to-accept-prestigious-award-from-queen-11-07-2022/  (Accessed: 24 July 2022).

 

 

Foster, K., Roche, M., Delgado, C., Cuzzillo, C., Giandinoto, J.A. and Furness, T., 2019. Resilience and mental health nursing: An integrative review of international literature. International journal of mental health nursing, 28(1), pp.71-85. 

 

 

Henshall, C., Davey, Z. and Jackson, D., 2020. Nursing resilience interventions–A way forward in challenging healthcare territories. Journal of clinical nursing. 

 

 

Kester, K. and Wei, H., 2018. Building nurse resilience. Nursing Management, 49(6), pp.42-45. 

 

 

Kim, E.Y. and Chang, S.O., 2022. Exploring nurse perceptions and experiences of resilience: a meta-synthesis study. BMC nursing, 21(1), pp.1-14. 

 

 

Lang, M., Jones, L., Harvey, C. and Munday, J., 2021. Workplace bullying, burnout and resilience amongst perioperative nurses in Australia: A descriptive correlational study. Journal of Nursing Management.

 

 

Manomenidis, G., Panagopoulou, E. and Montgomery, A., 2019. Resilience in nursing: The role of internal and external factors. Journal of nursing management, 27(1), pp.172-178. 

 

 

Morse, J.M., Kent-Marvick, J., Barry, L.A., Harvey, J., Okang, E.N., Rudd, E.A., Wang, C.Y. and Williams, M.R., 2021. Developing the resilience framework for nursing and healthcare. Global Qualitative Nursing Research, 8, p.23333936211005475. 

 

 

Odom-Forren, J., 2020. Nursing resilience in the world of COVID-19. Journal of PeriAnesthesia Nursing, 35(6), pp.555-556. 

 

 

Resilience in nursing. (2022). Retrieved 24 July 2022, from https://healthtimes.com.au/hub/nursing-careers/6/practice/healthinsights/resilience-in-nursing/2353/ 

 

 

Sanders, E.D., 2015. Nursing resilience: A nursing opportunity. Nursing Administration Quarterly, 39(2), pp.132-136. 

 

 

Thomas, L.J. and Revell, S.H., 2016. Resilience in nursing students: An integrative review. Nurse education today, 36, pp.457-462.