Evaluation of the relationship between posttraumatic growth level and perceived social support in nurses working during the COVID-19 panemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has been on our agenda for nearly two and a half years. The COVID-19 pandemic affects nurses who are struggling with it psychologically and physiologically. As a result of this process, which can be described as trauma, post-traumatic growth may have developed in nurses. There are studies in the literature stating that social support is associated with posttraumatic growth. This study was conducted as a descriptive and cross-sectional study to determine the post-traumatic growth levels, multidimensional perceived social support levels and the relationship between nurses working during the COVID-19 process. After obtaining the necessary ethics committee and institutional permissions, 62 nurses who cared for COVID-19 patients were reached within the scope of the study. Data were collected with the Socio-demographic Form, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, and the Post Traumatic Growth Inventory. Statistical analyzes were performed using a package program called IBM SPSS Statistics 24. The findings were evaluated a 95% confidence interval and the significance level as p<0.05. The total mean score of post-traumatic growth inventory in nurses was determined as 60.66±28.24. The total mean score of the perceived social support scale in nurses was found to be 65.44±20.14. A positive, statistically significant relationship was found between post-traumatic growth and social support (p<0.05). As the level of social support increases, the level of post-traumatic growth increases. But these findings; It cannot be generalized to the general population due to the small sample size. For this reason, it is necessary to conduct a study with a larger sample.