Psychological Well-Being of Nurses with One to Five Years of Clinical Experience.

Introduction: Nurses are required to fulfill many roles, including expertise, communication, and leadership and are psychologically vulnerable due to lack of manpower, emotional labor, and shift work. Among them, it is necessary to understand the psychological well-being of new nurses and junior nurses who have a high early resignation rate.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate psychological well-being of nurses and compare psychological well-being of nurses from the first to the fifth years of clinical experience.

Methods: Cross-sectional comparative design and purposive sampling method were used. Data were collected from 148 nurses with one to five years of experience working in tertiary care general hospitals. On November 11, 2021, an online link for the structured questionnaire was sent to the group social networking service accounts for nurses. Psychological well-being was assessed using a Korean version of the Scales of Psychological Well-being including autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others, purpose in life, and self-acceptance.

Results: The average psychological well-being of nurses was 194.11, with significant differences depending on years of clinical experience (p = .006, F = 3.82) and satisfaction with nursing (p < .001, F = 13.12). It was lowest at 180.08 in the first year, gradually improving, but falling again from the fourth year. Among five subfactors except positive relations with others (p = .389), psychological well-being was related to clinical experiences years using satisfaction with nursing and religion as covariates.

Conclusions: This study that compared psychological well-being from the first to the fifth year according to clinical experience revealed the need for optimized intervention for each year. Nursing managers can improve the psychological well-being of nurses through active and appropriate intervention according to the passage of nursing experience.