The relationship between resilience and solution-oriented thinking in nursing students

Objective This study aimed to determine the relationship between resilience and solution-oriented thinking in nursing students. Background Although resilience seems to be related with solution-oriented thinking in nursing students, there are only a few studies investigating these two variables in the literature. Design This is a cross-sectional survey study. Methods This study was conducted with 585 nursing students in Turkey, between February 2022 and May 2022. The data were collected using a personal information form, the resilience scale for nurses (RSN) and solution-focused inventory (SFI). To analyze the data, descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson’s correlation and multivariate linear regression analysis were used. Results In this study, the mean scores the nursing students obtained from the RSN and the SFI were 71.96 (SD 8.11) and 51.49 (SD 6.21), respectively. The correlation analysis revealed a significant positive correlation between resilience and solution-oriented thinking. Gender, economic status, grade point average and solution-focused thinking skills were determined to be the significant predictive factors of the resilience levels of the students. Conclusions This study shows that solution-oriented thinking is an important determinant of resilience. Therefore, starting from the first year of nursing education, students’ resilience levels and solution-oriented thinking skills should be evaluated, and the curriculum should be arranged to increase students’ resilience levels.