Relation between Resilience and Stress as Perceived by Nursing Students: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Context: Prolonged exposure to stress can lead to psychological distress, emotional exhaustion, burnout, and impaired resilience in nursing students. However, resilience is known to mitigate the detrimental impacts of stress. Resilience plays a significant role in students' academic success and retention in academic nursing programs.
Aim: This review aimed to conduct a scoping review of the literature addressing the relationship between resilience and stress among nursing students.

Methods: A scoping review, based on PRISMA guidelines, of studies of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method research designs that focus on resilience and stress relationships among nursing students. The search was conducted using PubMed, CINAHL, EBSCO, ProQuest, and Medline electronic databases, via the Saudi Digital Library. It included studies published during the last six years. For this review, publications about undergraduate nursing students only were considered. All the included studies were critically appraised using the critical appraisal tool.

Results: The screening method yielded 22 studies that met the inclusion criteria and were included in the review. Six main themes have emerged throughout this review which were: Sources of stress, resilience and stress levels among nursing students, the importance of resilience to nursing students, the relationship between stress and resilience, strategies to improve resilience in nursing students, and key variables in understanding resilience among nursing students.

Conclusion: This review synthesized the evidence relating to the relationship between resilience and stress among nursing students. Evidence highlighted the importance of resilience in dealing with nursing students' stressors in their academic and practical life. This review showed that the educational programs that focus on building and enhancing resilience among nursing students were disparate, and they were not of direct and significant impact on improving resilience. Therefore, further research on introducing interventional educational programs that target enhancing resilience among nursing students based on their personality is recommended.