Survey: Nurse Resilience, Decompression Off Balance

                                                               By Erica Carbajal

Nurses have a hard time disconnecting from work, and may benefit from additional workplace resources that support them in doing so, according to findings from a report on nurse resiliency.

The report, published May 13, is based on an analysis of data from more than 345,000 registered nurses in a database of more than 2 million responses collected throughout 2023.

Below are four key findings from the report:

-Nurses demonstrate strong resilience, but struggle to decompress. Overall, nurses report moderately high resilience (4.23 on a 5-point scale.) Activation, which refers to a sense of purpose and ability to find meaning in work, is also high at 4.56. However, nurses' decompression scores are the lowest at 3.90.

-Resilience — which the report defines as the ability to recover from or adjust easily to change — varies by generation, gender. Overall, older generations tend to have higher resilience than Millennials and Gen Z: Baby boomers have an average score of 4.32; Gen X: 4.25; Millennials: 4.18; and Gen Z at 4.13.

Compared to men, women experience higher activation, which suggests women have a stronger emotional connection to their work and more difficulty decompressing on their days off.

-Nearly 30% of nurses believe their organization doesn't consistently show them respect, despite respect being the top driver of workforce engagement.

-Decompression huddles are a strategy to build resilience and foster collaboration. The huddles are brief, daily meetings where nursing teams can prioritize remaining tasks that should be done before the end of a shift. Researchers also recommended building in time to recognize employees and ensure any lingering questions before the next shift are addressed.