Resilience development in nursing students and new nurse graduates: a qualitative umbrella review protocol

The objective of this umbrella review will be to synthesize qualitative evidence on the perception of experiences of resilience and resilience development in nursing students and new nurse graduates. The COVID-19 pandemic drew attention to longstanding issues of burnout and stress among nurses. While the crisis has abated, burnout remains higher than in pre-pandemic levels. Within the nursing context, it has been shown that resilience enables nurses to adapt to workplace stressors positively. This review will include qualitative systematic reviews and meta-syntheses on resilience and resilience development in nursing students and new nurse graduates. There will be no limitations on participant age, type of academic program, gender, or ethnicity. This review will follow the JBI methodology for umbrella reviews. A systematic search will be conducted of MEDLINE (Ovid), CINAHL (EBSCOhost), and Embase (Ovid) to locate qualitative systematic reviews and meta-syntheses. Gray literature will be searched using Google Scholar and ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global (ProQuest). The reference lists of all included reviews will also be searched for relevant papers. Two reviewers will independently screen titles and abstracts, and then full texts, against the eligibility criteria. The JBI critical appraisal instrument for systematic reviews and research syntheses will be used to assess methodological quality of the data. Data will be extracted using a modified version of the JBI data extraction tool for systematic reviews and research syntheses. A narrative summary and tables will be used to present the review characteristics and findings. Key synthesized findings will be displayed in a Summary of Evidence, with conclusions and relevant recommendations for practice and research provided. PROSPERO CRD420250655717.