Resilience Scale Psychometric Study. Adaptation to the Spanish Population in Nursing Students

Nursing students and professionals are exposed to highly stressful clinical situations. However, when confronted with stress, which is exacerbated by academic and professional situations, there is a great disparity between those who do not know how to respond suitably to the demands from patients or teachers due to a lack of competence and personal resistance, and those who are more resilient and develop a greater range of strengths. This research aims to analyse the validity and psychometric characteristics of a questionnaire on resilience adapted to Spanish nursing bachelor's degree students. The participants were 434 undergraduate nursing students from the province of Valencia (Spain) between 17 and 54 years of age (Mean, M = 21; Standard Deviation, SD = 0.320), 104 of whom were men (24%) and 330 women (76%). A cross-sectional group evaluation was carried out in the university itself, adhering to the ethical standards of the Declaration of Helsinki. Based on the descriptive, factorial, exploratory and confirmatory analyses, it was possible to confirm the suitability of the questionnaire and its adaptation to nursing students. The model is thus suitable for evaluating the population under study. Furthermore, there are statistically significant differences depending on age and gender. The results show that the questionnaire analysed is suited to evaluating resilience among Spanish nursing students, thereby justifying the adaptation of a scale of this nature to foster resilience among nursing students and nurses in professional life, who are exposed to critical situations with patients' suffering, deterioration or death. Our study highlights important practical implications: Spanish nursing studies involve theory and practice, but students and nurses in professional life have to confront critical situations of patients' suffering, deterioration, or death. These situations cause stress and feelings of impotence that may lead to chronic stress and even suicidal thoughts.