Background Globally, work rumination is a common phenomenon related to nurse burnout. However, most existing studies focus on the single negative impacts of rumination, with less exploration of its dual effects and antecedents. Therefore, comprehensively exploring the effect of nurse work rumination and its influencing factors is crucial for enhancing the accuracy of nursing management. Objectives Identify the antecedents and dual effects of nurse work rumination to deepen understanding of this phenomenon and provide references for formulating interventions that enhance nurses’ well-being and improve the quality of nursing work. Eligibility criteria Included studies were original research articles focusing on work-related rumination of nurses in clinical settings. Excluded studies were those involving nurses without patient contact, rumination unrelated to work, studies not addressing the effects or influencing factors of rumination and non-Chinese or non-English language publications. Sources of evidence CINAHL, Cochrane, EMBASE, MEDLINE, Pubmed, Scopus, Web of Science, Sinomed, Wanfang, VIP and CNKI were searched to identify articles about nurse work rumination which were published up to January 2025. Charting methods A scoping review of the published articles of nurse work rumination was performed with the methodological process guided by the framework proposed by Arksey and O’Malley. A three-step coding procedure was used to synthesise the impacts and antecedents of nurse work rumination, which were subdivided into four categories individually based on the conservation of resources theory, the three-dimension theory of happiness and the distinctive features of the nursing profession. Results 30 articles from 12 countries were included. The findings indicate that nurse work rumination has 28 kinds of impacts, including positive, negative and double-edged sword effects, in four aspects: nursing quality and safety (n=7), happiness (n=7), health (n=10) and relationship (n=4) from 29 articles. The findings also suggest that from 26 articles, work rumination will be influenced by 31 factors, which are based on conservation of resources theory classified into four categories: resource depletion (n=14), resource protection (n=4), consequences of resource depletion (n=5) and behaviour and cognition (n=8). Conclusions This scoping review constructs a conceptual framework of ‘antecedent factors-nurse work rumination-dual impacts’ by systematically synthesising 30 studies. Rooted in the conservation of resources theory, three-dimensional theory of happiness and nursing professional characteristics, the framework clarifies the classification logic and internal connections of 31 influencing factors and 28 bidirectional impacts. The positive effect of work rumination can promote nurses’ personal development by facilitating the problem-solving pondering. Nursing managers can leverage this integrated framework to design targeted intervention strategies, maximising the constructive effects of rumination while mitigating its adverse impacts. Classifying the factors affecting nurse work rumination according to the conservation of resources theory provides an important basis for exploring the influence mechanism of nurse work rumination. Future research should focus more on empirical studies on rumination to reduce nurses’ burnout and improve the quality of nursing work.
Hu et al. (Sun,) studied this question.