J Korean Acad Nurs Adm.  2025 Jan;31(1):45-53. 10.11111/jkana.2025.31.1.45.

The Mediating Effect of Work Friendship on the Relationship between Grit and Work Engagement among Millennial and Generation Z Nurses in Korea

• Park D
• Lee H

• KMID: 2566081
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.11111/jkana.2025.31.1.45

Abstract

Purpose
This study aimed to explore the relationship between grit and work engagement among millennial and Generation Z (MZ generation) nurses, as well as the moderating effect of work friendships on this relationship.
Methods
The study included 191 MZ generation nurses with over six months of experience, surveyed via a self-administered questionnaire at four general hospitals in Daejeon and Seoul from December 2020 to February 2021. Descriptive statistics, t-tests, one-way analysis of variance, Pearson’s correlation analysis, and hierarchical multiple regression were used to analyze the collected data. The PROCESS macro program with bootstrapping was employed to evaluate the significance of mediating effects.
Results
Work friendships partially mediated the association between grit and work engagement, with an explanatory power of 29.9%. The significance of the indirect mediating effect using bootstrapping analysis indicated an effect size of 0.33, a lower limit confidence interval of 0.17, and an upper limit confidence interval of 0.52, which was significant as it did not include Zero.
Conclusion
Developing a program to improve grit is necessary to increase the work engagement of MZ generation nurses, and establishing and implementing a program to improve work friendships, along with education for individual nurses, is crucial.

Keyword

Grit; Nurses; MZ generation; Work engagement; Work friendship