Development and Validation of a Resilience Scale for Nursing Home Staff

INTRODUCTION: 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. METHODS: 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. RESULTS: 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). CONCLUSION: 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.