Resilience and Social Support Protect Nurses from Anxiety and Depression: Evidence from Greece in the Post-COVID-19 Era

Background: Nurses experience high levels of anxiety and depression since they work in a high stressful environment. Thus, identification of preventive factors against nurses’ anxiety and depression is essential to improve their quality of life. In this context, our aim was to examine the impact of resilience and social support on nurses’ anxiety and depression. Methods: A cross-sectional online study was implemented in Greece during September 2024. We used the Brief Resilience Scale, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support and the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 to measure resilience, social support, anxiety and depression, respectively. Results: Our sample included 677 nurses with a mean age of 37.73 years (standard deviation; 9.38). Our multivariable linear regression models identified a negative relationship between resilience and anxiety (b=-0.94, 95% confidence interval (CI)=-1.11 to -0.77, p<0.001) and depression (b=-0.88, 95% CI=-1.05 to -0.71, p<0.001). Similarly, we found that significant others support was associated with reduced anxiety (b=-0.30, 95% CI=-0.43 to -0.18, p<0.001) and depression (b=-0.24, 95% CI=-0.37 to -0.12, p<0.001). Conclusions: Our findings suggest the protective role of resilience and social support against nurses’ anxiety and depression. Managers and policy makers should adopt appropriate interventions to improve nurses’ resilience and social support, and, thus, to improve their mental health and quality of life.