Fostering well-being and resilience in you and your nursing team

Nurses’ resilience and well-being continues to be significantly impacted through the pressures faced working in healthcare and with the unprecedented demands being placed upon them as the health services struggles with significant demands and limited resources. Despite there being a renewed focus on supporting the resilience and well-being of nurses there is varied understanding of these concepts. Often, pressure will be placed on the individual nurse to maintain their own resilience and well-being. However, increasing evidence shows the importance of organisational and team leadership and its impact on the resilience of nurses and ultimately their well-being.

In order to support the development of nurses and nurse leaders, theoretical underpinnings of resilience and well-being are presented, followed by two models of well-being: the Muchness Model and Rogers’ Availability and Vulnerability Model, for consideration and reflection. Finally, activities to support resilience and wellbeing are presented with resources to review that have been shown to support well-being and resilience on an individual, team and organisational basis.