Objective  To investigate the mental health status of clinical nurses and the affecting factors, in order to enhance the mental health, promote the career development and finally improve the nursing quality.

  Methods  Totally 166 front-line clinical nurses in a tertiary general hospital were investigated by using job stressors questionnaire, psychological resilience questionnaire and career status evaluation questionnaire. The Amos 24.0 software was used to establish the path relationship model based on the analysis results, and the maximum likelihood ratio method was used to verify and modify the model.

  Results  The total scores of job stressors, psychological resilience and career of 166 nurses were 99.27 ±4.32, 84.28 ±4.70 and 77.76 ±1.19, respectively. The total score of job stressor was negatively correlated with the total score of career status (P < 0.05), and the total score of psychological resilience was positively correlated with the total score of career status(P < 0.05). Path analysis showed that the direct effect coefficient of psychological resilience on career was 0.42, while the direct effect coefficient of job stressors on career and psychological resilience was -0.68 and -0.58, respectively. The effect coefficient of job stressors on career through psychological resilience path was 0.24 and the mediating role of psychological resilience was small.

  Conclusions  The work pressure and the level of psychological resilience of clinical nurses in this hospital were high, and their career status was in the middle level. In clinical management, nurses'work pressure should be reduced so as to improve their psychological resilience level and promote their career development.