Development and Validation of a Resilience Scale for Nursing Home Staff

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new resilience scale specifically for nursing home staff, capturing unique stressors and coping strategies in this work environment.

Contribution

A novel resilience scale tailored to nursing home staff, capturing context-specific demands and coping strategies not addressed by existing tools.

Findings

The final scale includes 17 items across four factors with strong validity and reliability.

The scale enables early identification of staff at risk of burnout and supports targeted interventions.

It provides policymakers and researchers with a tool to assess resilience and improve care quality.

Abstract

Nursing home staff experience sustained emotional and physical stress. Existing resilience scales, developed for the general population or hospital‐based, do not capture the specific demands of nursing home care, including chronic staffing shortages, emotional labour and end‐of‐life care complexities. This study developed and validated a resilience scale tailored to nursing home staff.

Following DeVellis's scale development guidelines, 26 preliminary items were generated and refined to 21 through expert content validation. Data were collected from 302 nursing home staff (registered nurses, nurse assistants and care workers) employed at 25 nursing homes in Seoul, South Korea, between 1 July and 31 August, 2023. The validity and reliability were examined using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses.

The final scale comprised 17 items across four factors: Emotional Self‐Regulation and Self‐Efficacy; Meaning and Personal Growth through Caregiving; Support‐Seeking and Meaning‐Based Coping; and Professional Growth Orientation. The model demonstrated good fit (CMIN/DF = 1.76, CFI = 0.95, RMSEA = 0.07; SRMR = 0.08), strong internal consistency (α = 0.88) and significant correlation with CD‐RISC (r = 0.68, p < 0.001).

This validated context‐specific scale reflects the unique resilience of nursing home practices and offers a tool for assessing and strengthening psychological resources among staff in nursing home settings.

Develops and validates a resilience scale designed for nursing home staff, addressing unique nursing home care demands not captured by existing general or hospital‐based tools.Reconceptualises resilience as a multifaceted construct shaped by professional identity, emotional self‐regulation, meaning‐making in caregiving and context‐specific coping strategies in caring for older adults.

Develops and validates a resilience scale designed for nursing home staff, addressing unique nursing home care demands not captured by existing general or hospital‐based tools.

Reconceptualises resilience as a multifaceted construct shaped by professional identity, emotional self‐regulation, meaning‐making in caregiving and context‐specific coping strategies in caring for older adults.

Enables early identification of nursing home staff at risk of burnout or moral distress, facilitating timely targeted interventions to strengthen resilience and well‐being.Supports improvements in the continuity of care, emotional presence and quality of life for older residents, particularly those living with dementia or at end‐of‐life.

Enables early identification of nursing home staff at risk of burnout or moral distress, facilitating timely targeted interventions to strengthen resilience and well‐being.

Supports improvements in the continuity of care, emotional presence and quality of life for older residents, particularly those living with dementia or at end‐of‐life.

Provides policymakers with a reliable tool for assessing and monitoring resilience among nursing home staff, guiding targeted resource allocation and workforce planning.Offers researchers and educators a validated instrument to design and evaluate resilience‐enhancement programmes and explore links between resilience, job satisfaction, retention and care quality.

Provides policymakers with a reliable tool for assessing and monitoring resilience among nursing home staff, guiding targeted resource allocation and workforce planning.

Offers researchers and educators a validated instrument to design and evaluate resilience‐enhancement programmes and explore links between resilience, job satisfaction, retention and care quality.