Psychological resilience and work engagement of Chinese nurses: a chain mediating model of career identity and quality of work life

AIM: To investigate how nurses’ psychological resilience affects their work engagement and the resulting pathways, namely, the intermediary effect of career identity and quality of work life. BACKGROUND: Psychological resilience is the ability to adapt to new circumstances and overcome difficulties. Work engagement is a positive, perfect emotional and cognitive state in the work process, which has a positive effect on nurses’ physical and mental health and career development. The importance of psychological resilience in nursing is growing in popularity. However, few studies have explored the relationship between psychological resilience and nurses’ work engagement. DESIGN: This is a cross-sectional study. METHODS: From March to April 2023, 356 nurses in the First Affiliated Hospital of Jinzhou Medical University in China received valid questionnaires. The study was surveyed using the Connor-Davidson, Resilience Scale, the Nursing Career Identity Scale, the Work-Related Quality of Life Scale, and the 15-item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale. Process version 3.5 plug-in SPSS 25 was used to test the mediating effect. RESULTS: (1) Psychological resilience was significantly and positively correlated with career identity, quality of work life, and work engagement (r = 0.702–0.803, p < 0.001). (2) Career identity and quality of work life partially mediated the relationship between psychological resilience and work engagement, with effect sizes of 0.2382 and 0.0958, respectively. (3) There was a chain mediation model between psychological resilience and work engagement that had a value of 0.1219. CONCLUSION: Career identity and quality of work life played a chain-mediating role between psychological resilience and work engagement. Thus, in order to enhance the work engagement of clinical nurses, it is necessary for nursing managers to take measures to enhance not only psychological resilience but also their career identity and the quality of work life.