Clinical supervision and resilience in nurses: A scoping review

Area of Science:

• Nursing
• Healthcare Management
• Psychology

Background:

• Clinical supervision is a recognized professional development tool for nurses.
• Nurses' resilience is crucial for maintaining well-being and quality of care.
• Existing literature on the empirical relationship between clinical supervision and nurses' resilience is limited.

Purpose of the Study:

• To conduct a scoping review to describe the empirical relationships between clinical supervision and nurses' resilience.
• To identify and map existing research on this topic.

Main Methods:

• A comprehensive scoping review was conducted.
• Searches included multiple electronic databases (e.g., CINAHL, Medline, Scopus) and grey literature up to May 2024.
• Seven publications, including qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods studies, were included and appraised.

Main Results:

• The included studies showed varied approaches to exploring the clinical supervision-resilience relationship.
• While five studies reported interventions, their targets (resilience or supervision) differed.
• Available evidence suggests clinical supervision may enhance nurses' resilience, but the evidence strength is limited, with only one study meeting high methodological quality criteria.

Conclusions:

• A significant gap exists in the literature due to the lack of rigorous, controlled studies with standardized outcome assessments.
• This gap presents an opportunity to investigate a potential causal link between clinical supervision and resilience in nurses.
• Further research should focus on high-quality studies to understand the factors influencing this relationship.