Resilience and the reduction of occupational stress in Nursing

OBJECTIVE: to analyze the association between resilience and occupational stress of Nursing professionals from a general hospital. METHOD: an observational, cross-sectional study involving 321 Nursing professionals. The data collected were: socio-demographic and labour variables, stress and resilience, analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistics. RESULTS: 54.5% of the participants presented moderate resilience and 36.4%, high; 73.5% were at risk of exposure to occupational stress; the relationship between psychological demands and professional category (p=0.009), between control over work and age (p=0.04), professional category (p<0.001), having a management position (p=0.009), being a specialist (p=0.006) and between social support and professional category (p<0.001), having a management position (p=0.03), daily working hours (p=0.03), being a specialist (p<0.001) were verified. There was an association between resilience Factor I - resolutions of actions and values and control over work (p=0.04) and social support (p=0.002). CONCLUSION: the Nursing professionals of a general hospital have moderate to high resilience which, associated with high control over their work and high social support, may contribute to the reduction of exposure to occupational stress.