Background: This descriptive survey aimed to identify the factors affecting the post-traumatic growth (PTG) of nurses in COVID-19 designated hospitals on the basis of a PTG model.
Methods: A survey of 250 nurses working at three COVID-19 hospitals in Seoul, South Korea, was conducted from May to July 2021. The collected data were analyzed using the IBM SPSS 25 (IBM Inc., Armonk, NY, USA).
Results: The participants in this study were mostly women (92.7%), and the average age and career duration were 32.08 and 7.88 years, respectively. The factors that significantly influenced the participants' PTG were identified as marriage, religion, self-disclosure, deliberate rumination, meaning in life, and resilience.
Conclusions: As new infectious diseases emerge, it is necessary to develop a program that can encourage self-disclosure and deliberate rumination, help nurses discover and pursue meaning in life, and enhance their ability to overcome trauma and promote PTG.
Keywords: COVID-19; post-traumatic growth; post-traumatic stress disorder; resilience; rumination; social support.