Resilience Among Professional Health Workers in Emergency Services.

INTRODUCTION

Although it seems logical that working in an emergency service implies having a great capacity to face extreme situations, resilience in health care workers has been shown to be related not only to individual personality characteristics but also with external factors. The objective of this study was to understand the resilience of health professionals working in hospital and in-hospital emergency services and to determine the relationships of resilience with sociodemographic and work-related conditions.

METHODS

This cross-sectional study included emergency physicians, nurses, and nursing assistants. Sociodemographic variables, work characteristics, and the Resilience Scale-25 were analyzed. Data were not missing at random and models with imputed data were tested.

RESULTS

A total of 321 professionals participated. Their mean age was 43.36 years (SD 8.73), and 81.31% were women. The mean resilience score was 133.38 (SD 17.11), which corresponds to moderately low to moderate levels. Being single (B = -7.35; P < .01) or divorced (B = -8.26; P = .04) were associated with decreased resilience in the raw score of the Resilience Scale-25. Working shifts that do not include night shift (OR = 2.00, 95% CI 1.04, 3.90, P = .04) and being a nurse (OR = 2.11, 95% CI 1.07, 4.18; P = .03) were associated with higher odds of belonging to categories of lower resilience levels. However, more professional work experience was related to lower odds of belonging to categories of lower resilience levels (OR = 0.94, 95% CI 0.89-0.99, P < .04). Several variables, including marital status, demonstrated inconsistent associations across different modeling methods.

CONCLUSIONS

Resilience in professional health workers was related to personal and working conditions. The scores of emergency staff were low and improvement with specific strategies is needed.