Introduction: During their education, nursing students face substantial academic burdens, including demanding work in the clinical environment, which increases their risk of developing mental health difficulties such as stress, anxiety, and depression. Mental health is a multidimensional and dynamic process that encompasses not only the absence of disorders but also positive aspects of mental functioning, such as subjective well-being. An important protective factor in managing stress and maintaining psychological balance is resilience, a dynamic adaptive process that mitigates the negative effects of stress and strengthens an individual's internal resources for successfully coping with challenges. Purpose: The purpose of this master's thesis is to examine resilience among undergraduate nursing students and to determine its association with stress, anxiety, depression, and subjective well-being. We also investigated the association between resilience, year of study, and work experience in healthcare. Methods: A non-experimental, cross-sectional quantitative research method was used. The research instrument included validated scales for assessing resilience (CD-RISC-10), subjective well-being (MHC-SF), anxiety (GAD-7), depression (PHQ-8), and perceived stress (PSS-4). A purposive, non-probability sample consisted of 548 undergraduate nursing students from all three years of study at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ljubljana. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation coefficients, and one-way analysis of variance with the Scheffé post hoc test. Results: The results showed that resilience was significantly and moderately to highly negatively correlated with stress, anxiety, and depression, and positively correlated with subjective well-being. Small but statistically significant differences were identified between years of study, with resilience being higher among second-year students compared to first-year students. The highest levels of resilience were demonstrated by students with regular work experience in nursing care. Discussion and conclusion: The results confirm that resilience is significantly associated with better mental health in nursing students. Students with higher resilience report lower levels of mental health difficulties and higher subjective well-being, while the level of resilience is also associated with their year of study and the extent of their work experience in healthcare. These findings support the inclusion of educational and support programmes aimed at systematically strengthening resilience during study, with the goal of protecting and promoting the mental health of future healthcare professionals.
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