Resilience characteristics in nurses working for the South African National Blood Services

Abstract

The South African National Blood Services (SANBS) has to collect 3000 units of blood every day to ensure sufficient safe blood supply for South Africa. This blood is collected from voluntary non-remunerated donors. The working environment of the phlebotomy nurses working for the SANBS is completely different from nurses in other disciplines and requires a specific set of characteristics to ensure that they are resilient in their work place. Numerous studies have been conducted about resilience within different nursing disciplines. However, no studies have been conducted with regard to the resilience or characteristics that this specific nursing group needs for their specific working environment. The purpose of the study was to explore and describe the perceptions that nurses working for SANBS have of the characteristics they would need to be resilient in their specific working environment. The data collected during this study enabled and guided the researcher to formulate recommendations that can be used by nurses who work or want to work for the SANBS. A qualitative descriptive inquiry method was used for this study. The population comprised of enrolled nurses and registered nurses working for the SANBS as phlebotomy nurses. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of 12 participants to collect data. This ensured data saturation. Concurrent descriptive data analysis was conducted. Four themes and related sub-themes were identified. The main themes relate to working for the SANBS as a phlebotomy nurse, participants' understanding of resilience, characteristics a nurse need to remain resilience when working as a phlebotomy nurse and environmental and service related factors that influence resilience. The conclusions address participants' transition from other work environments to the SANBS; the characteristics needed to be resilient in the SANBS work environment; and the characteristics displayed during challenges in the working environment. Recommendations were formulated for nursing practice, nursing education, and nursing research to improve the resilience of nurses working for the SANBS.