Purposes: The aim of this study was to explore the associations between spiritual health, health-promoting behavior, depressive tendency, and resilience.
Methods: This was a cross-sectional and correlational study with a sample of new nurses during their first 3 months as registered nurses (RNs). Data from self-administrated questionnaires were collected. The instruments included scales for spiritual health, health promotion, depression (the Beck depression inventory II [BDI-II]), and resilience. SPSS for Windows was used to analyze the data. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to according to the research purposes. Multiple regression was used to determine the predictors of resilience.
Results: One hundred twenty-four participants responded; the response rate was 63.6%. Most of the participants were female (96.8%). Average age was 23.5 years, self-rated health condition was good (61.3%), and self-rated performance of academic and clinic practice in school was grade A. The research findings included the following. First, the descriptive findings of the main research variables are as follows. The participants’ spiritual health was moderate to good (mean=3.97, SD=0.53). Their score for health-promoting behavior was 2.46 (SD=0.59), which means their frequency of doing health-promoting behaviors was between half the time and usually. The average score on the BDI-II was 7.95, and 83.6% of respondents had normal BDI-II scores. The average resilience score was 5.15 of 7. Therefore, most of the participants showed moderate resilience (44.4%), 33.9% had low resilience, and the others had high resilience (21.8%). Second, the correlational research findings were as follows. There was a positive significant correlation between health-promoting behavior and resilience (r=.78, p<.001), indicating that the higher the frequency of health-promoting behaviors, the higher the resilience. Thirdly, there was a significant negative correlation between depression and resilience (r=−.49, p<.001), indicating that more depression means less resilience. Fourthly, there was a significant positive correlation between spiritual health and resilience (r=.76, p<.001), indicating that the higher the spiritual health score, the higher the resilience score. Multiple regression analysis showed that the independent variables could account for 71.0% of the variance of resilience (F=34.24, p<.001). Participants’ clinical practice grade in university (β = .14, p < .05), health-promoting behaviors (β = .46, p<.001), spiritual health (β = .34, p<.001), and depressive tendency (β = −.14, p<.05) were the main predicators of resilience.
Conclusion: The study tested predictive factors for resilience among new nurses, including clinical practice grade in university, spiritual health, health-promoting behavior, and depressive tendency. The results would help to establish a resilience-nurturing model for new nurses that is helpful for planning interventions for nurses to improve resilience in the future.