Development of a Conceptual Model of Resilience in New Graduate Nurses

To explore experiences of stress-tolerance among new graduate nurses and to develop a conceptual model of resilience. The formation rules of the conceptual model can be found. It’s necessary to examine resilience positively affecting new nurses at different stages of transition period. Using a grounded theory approach, 12 outstanding new nurses aged 20-26 years whose working time was more than 12 months but less than 24 months were interviewed. Dynamic adjustment process was the core category of the conceptual model of resilience, including three sub-processes, (focus on self-survival, clinical environment, and patient), fifteen major categories and thirty sub-categories. The process consisted of three main phases: ‘Paying Attention to Self-Survival’, ‘Caring for Clinical Situations’, and ‘Caring for Patients’. The feedback of head nurses can make new nurses recognize their strengths and weaknesses, and feel the warmth from the leaders, which is favorable to the improvement of new nurses' working ability. Flexible scheduling likely creates a good working atmosphere and maintains the mental health of new nurses, which can make them learned much skills from the senior nurses, and help them smoothly adapt to the work environment. The personalized instructions and career-planning are crucial to strengthen the resilience of new nurses. External supports mean that the nurses can obtain the supports and help from a partner, family or friends, which become a key factor to affect the resilience of the nurse. Self-management, right values, independent learning, a firm belief and other personal factors are important internal factors for promoting the development of nurses' resilience. This conceptual model can be used to understand connotation of resilience in new graduate nurses, and to facilitate nurses’ role transition. It’s likely to provide reference for nursing managers to formulate relevant strategies, greatly reducing the turnover rate and alleviating the shortage of nurses in global nursing workforce.