An investigation of the effects of an anger management psychoeducation programme on psychological resilience and affect of intensive care nurses

Abstract

Background: It is known that intensive care nurses experience stressful events more frequently than nurses working in other units. Experiencing stressful events frequently may reduce the psychological resilience of intensive care nurses and cause them to express their tension and negative emotions as anger. However, nurses’ failure to manage their anger may also lead to medical errors and adversely affect the quality of healthcare services. Purpose: This study aims to investigate the effects of an anger management psychoeducation programme on psychological resilience and affect of intensive care nurses. Methods: Using a self-controlled design, this study was conducted with nurses working in a tertiary intensive care unit of a private hospital in Turkey. The participants were randomly and equally dis tributed to the study group (n = 16) and the control group (n = 16). The participants in the study group attended an eight-week anger management psychoeducation programme, while those in the control group did not. The Psychological Resilience Scale for Adults (RSA) and Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS) were applied to both groups as pre-test and post-test. In addition, one month after the post-test, RSA and PANAS were administered again to determine the stability of the impact of the psy choeducation program on the participants. Results: No significant change over time was observed in the scores of the control group from the overall scale (all ıntra-group comparison p-values > 0.05), while a significant change over time was observed in the scores of the study group from the overall scale (all ıntra-group comparison p-values < 0.001). Although it was observed that both groups’ positive affect scores changed over time (both ıntra-group comparison p-values < 0.05), the paired comparison revealed that the scores of the control group were similar. On the other hand, it was observed that the study group’s positive effect scores increased signif icantly after the psychoeducation programme but remained similar in the follow-up period. Furthermore, only the study group’s negative affect scores decreased over time, this decrease continued in the follow up period. Conclusions: The study concludes that the anger management psychoeducation programme affected the psychological resilience and emotional state of intensive care nurses.