Factors Influencing Nurse Resilience in High-Stress Emergency Care Settings: The Mediating Role of Peer Support Systems

Abstract

Resilience in nurses is crucial in the context of emergency care since they face many stressful factors including trauma exposure, high acuity of patients, decision making, workload stress, and emotional exhaustion. The current research paper investigates factors that affect resilience in nurses in stressful environments of emergency care and includes political protocols, cultural insensitivity, and peer support systems. Quantitative cross-sectional approach was chosen and data was gathered from pediatric emergency nurses in selected hospitals in Lahore, Pakistan. The sample size consisted of 220 nurses who work in highly stressful environment of pediatric emergency care. Descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, multiple regression, and mediation analysis in SPSS were applied in the process of data analysis. Peer support systems and cultural insensitivity were found to be the most powerful predictors of nurse resilience, whereas political protocol was found to have a lesser direct effect on nurse resilience. Mediation analysis revealed that peer support systems partly mediate the effect of political protocol on nurse resilience and also partly mediate the effect of cultural insensitivity on nurse resilience. From these results, one can understand that nurse resilience is not merely an individual quality but also a workplace result that can be affected through interpersonal support, cultural inclusiveness, and organizational policies. Health care organizations must take initiatives in this regard.