Relationship of Affect, Resilience and Social Problem Solving among Female Nursing Students

The study was aimed at determining the relationship between traits such as emotion and resilience with components of the social problem solving model proposed by D'Zurilla&Goldfried (1971). The sample consisted of 156 female nursing students between the ages of 17 and 23 (Mean=19, SD=1.257) from a nursing college in suburban Chennai. The students belonged to the first, second, third and fourth years of the B.Sc Nursing course. The students responded to items on the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (Connor&Davidson, 2003), the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (Watson et al., 1988) and the Social Problem Solving Inventory-Revised (D'Zurilla et al., 2002). Resilience and positive affect were positively correlated with constructive problem solving, i.e. positive problem orientation combined with rational problem solving. In contrast, negative affect was positively correlated with dysfunctional problem solving, i.e. negative problem orientation with impulsive carelessness style and/or avoidance style. Correlational analysis revealed a significant positive relationship between resilience and positive affect and a significant negative relationship between resilience and negative affect. No significant differences were found between the classes on any of the variables of the study.