Objective To explore the mediating effect of neonatal intensive care unit(NICU) nurses′ benefit support on psychological resilience and death anxiety.

Methods A total of 237 NICU nurses from six tertiary grade A hospitals in Xi′an were selected as the research object.The general information questionnaire, benefit target response perception scale, psychological resilience scale and death anxiety scale were used for online questionnaire survey to analyze the correlation between variables, and establish a structural equation model between research variables to verify the mediating effect of benefit support.

Results The death anxiety score of NICU nurses was(8.12 ± 3.02).Mental resilience was significantly positively correlated with active-constructive response(r=0.571, P < 0.01), but significantly negatively correlated with the other three dimensions of benefit support and death anxiety(r=-0.601, -0.614, -0.455, -0.656, P < 0.01).Death anxiety was significantly negatively correlated with active-constructive response(r=-0.691, P < 0.01), and significantly positively correlated with the other three dimensions of benefit support(r=0.628, 0.711, 0.436, P < 0.01).The results of structural equation model showed that the mediating effect of psychological resilience on death anxiety through active-constructive response was 15.38%, and the mediating effect of psychological resilience on death anxiety through active-destructive response was 16.48%.

Conclusions On the nursing management of NICU, active-constructive response should be used to keep nurses in mental health, reduce the degree of death anxiety and provide higher quality nursing for children.