Developing the Resilience Framework for Nursing and Healthcare

Abstract

Despite four decades of resilience research, resilience remains a poor fit for practice as a scientific construct. Using the literature, we explored the concepts attributed to the development of resilience, identifying those that mitigate symptoms of distress caused by adversity and facilitate coping in seven classes of illness: transplants, cancer, mental illness, episodic illness, chronic and painful illness, unexpected events, and illness within a dyadic relationship. We identified protective, compensatory, and challenge-related coping-concept strategies that healthcare workers and patients use during the adversity experience. Healthcare-worker assessment and selection of appropriate coping concepts enable the individual to control their distress, resulting in attainment of equanimity and the state of resilience, permitting the resilient individual to work toward recovery, recalibration, and readjustment. We inductively developed and linked these conceptual components into a dynamic framework, The Resilience Framework for Nursing and Healthcare, making it widely applicable for healthcare across a variety of patients.

Resilience, Coping Strategies and Posttraumatic Growth in the Workplace Following COVID-19: A Narrative Review on the Positive Aspects of Trauma

“…Despite the negative mental effects, dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic has forced workers to develop resilience strategies, as during other outbreaks [ 17 ]. As already mentioned, resilience is generally defined as the ability to adapt and maintain adequate functioning despite adverse events and can be conceptualized as a trait, outcome or process [ 20 , 21 , 22 ]. For healthcare workers, coping with mental health problems such as anxiety, depression and burnout during the emergency can be challenging.…”

“…Research has not yet reached unanimous agreement on the definition and conceptualization of resilience. Generally, the construct can be defined as positive adaptation despite adverse conditions or as the ability to maintain adequate functioning despite destructive events [ 12 , 20 , 21 , 22 ]. Posttraumatic growth defines the positive psychological change that occurs following highly stressful and demanding life situations.…”

Exploring experiences of COVID‐19‐positive individuals from social media posts

“…Finally, the challenging concepts are knowledge, courage, patience and meaning finding. These concepts give patients the power to endure the process of recovery and move towards equanimity (Morse et al, 2021). These findings might provide a preliminary understanding of being COVID-19 positive and, ultimately, help lead patients towards recovery.…”

“…On an individual level, social media data such as those used in this study may help clinical public health nurses prepare patients for their illness experience and empower patients towards resiliency and recovery. Looking towards nursing theory, COVID-19 tweets can be broadly categorized into protecting, compensating and challenging coping concepts (Morse et al, 2021). Protecting concepts are internal or external resources that improve the adverse event (e.g., COVID-19 positive); compensatory concepts are the actions taken to counteract the adverse event; challenging concepts are the personal efforts that bring an individual to overcome the adverse event.…”

Editorial Farewell

“…Recently with colleagues, I published a framework exploring the conceptual variations of six categories of illnesses (i.e., living with uncertain diagnoses, self-awareness of mental illness, ongoing painful conditions, major solid-organ transplants, episodic illness, unexpected and unanticipated accidents or trauma, and dyadic caregiving for the frail and ill). We identified the pathways and patterns of commonly used concepts that are used to facilitate resilience (Morse et al, 2021). Conceptual inquiry is essential, beyond their sterile definitions, and directly applicable to care.…”