The hopes of nurses who care for people diagnosed with chronic mental illness in closed wards.

Purpose: To identify factors influencing the hopes of mental health nurses and to explore their experiences with a sense of hope.

Design And Methods: A descriptive research survey was conducted with 113 nurses at three closed psychiatric wards in South Korea.

Findings: Nurses' hope, interpersonal skill competence, and professional self-concept were all found to have statistically significant correlations (r = 0.60-0.73, p < 0.01). These factors explained 62% of the variance in nurses' hope. In ten themes influencing hope, 71.1% were positive, 28.9% negative.

Practice Implications: The findings suggest that the promotion of nurses' interpersonal skill competence and professional self-concept is helpful for increasing hope levels. Both positive and negative experiences with hope are important in developing strategies of nursing roles.