Hospital nurses' lived experiences of intelligent resilience: A phenomenological study

Abstract

Aim and objectives: To explore Iranian hospital nurses' lived experiences of intelligent resilience.

Background: Nurses do high levels of emotional work when fulfilling patients' and their family members' complex needs. Intelligent resilience can alleviate nurses' stress and enhance their endurance.

Design: This study was based on the Husserlian descriptive phenomenology.

Methods: A purposive sample of ten hospital nurses was drawn from hospitals affiliated with Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran. In-depth semi-structured interviews were held to collect data. The seven-step data analysis approach proposed by Colaizzi was used for the data analysis. In this study, the adherence to consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative guidelines has been followed.

Results: The participating hospital nurses' lived experiences of intelligent resilience came into four main themes of patience and wisdom, reverence, situational self-control and appealing to religiosity. Each of the four main themes included two subthemes which were having peace and wise quietness, reverence for the patients, physicians and nurses, distancing themselves from stressful situations and displacing staff who cause stress, and the nurse's trust in God as well as the patient and his family`s trust in God, respectively.

Conclusion: Nurses with intelligent resilience are able to bring peace, reverence for others and situational self-control to stressors thereby providing higher quality of care to their patients.

Relevance to clinical practice: Nurses work in unstable and stressful conditions. The findings of this study provide better understanding about the concept of nurses' intelligent resilience and its indicators and attributes.

Keywords: emotional intelligence; emotional resilience; hospital nurses; intelligent resilience; phenomenology; qualitative research.