Measuring resilience in palliative care workers using the situational judgement test methodology

Area of Science:

• Occupational Health Psychology
• Healthcare Worker Well-being
• Psychometric Assessment

Background:

• Limited research exists on assessing resilience within healthcare settings.
• Healthcare professionals, particularly in palliative care, face significant stressors.
• Developing reliable measures for resilience is crucial for supporting this workforce.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a situational judgement test (SJT) for measuring resilience.
• To assess the reliability and validity of the SJT in palliative care workers.
• To explore the SJT's predictive utility for well-being and employee attitudes.

Main Methods:

• A situational judgement test (SJT) was created to capture resilience-related behaviors.
• The SJT underwent reliability and validity testing with 284 palliative care workers.
• Longitudinal regression analyses examined the SJT's predictive power over time.

Main Results:

• The SJT demonstrated a negative association with sickness absence and a positive association with well-being and employee attitudes.
• The SJT predicted well-being and attitudes at two time points, independent of other measures.
• Reliability analyses indicated acceptable test-retest scores (ρ = 0.71) and high internal consistency (α = 0.91).

Conclusions:

• The SJT is a valid assessment tool for resilience in at-risk healthcare workers.
• The SJT can be utilized for both summative and formative assessment purposes.
• Further research is recommended to explore the SJT's potential as a formative tool for enhancing workplace resilience.