Resilience in helping healthcare workers deal with HIV supply shortages in Nigeria: Quantitative descriptive study

A quantitative descriptive study was conducted to measure whether HIV medical supply shortages relate to the resiliency levels of healthcare workers in Nigeria who care for HIV patients. Data were collected using the Resilience Scale (RS) from nurses and doctors caring for HIV and AIDS patients, in addition to reviewing archival supply requisitions and supplies received records for a ten-month period from January to October 2014 in eight hospitals in the Delta State of Nigeria. Univariate analysis was used to evaluate the data on the resiliency level of nurses and doctors and the rate of the medical supply shortages. Bivariate analysis was also used to measure the relationship between the resiliency level among nurses and doctors and the HIV medical supply shortages. The analysis revealed that nurses and doctors in Delta State exhibit moderate resilience in the face of shortages and that a wide variation in the level of supply shortages exists across hospitals. The bivariate analysis revealed a non-significant correlation, indicating no evidence for a relationship between resiliency levels and the medical supply shortages. In summary, the magnitude of the correlation indicates that if the sample size for the hospitals were greater, a relationship may have been detected. It is therefore recommended that further study on this topic should consider increasing the sample size for the hospitals.