Mental toughness and psychological performance skills in the operating room: Staff perceptions and implications for function and training.

The importance of psychological performance skills (mental toughness) is recognised in many mission-critical professions. Similar importance has been suggested for nursing. Survey data demonstrate that surgical staff believe that such skills exert significant influence on surgical excellence, surgical errors and on managing surgical emergencies. However, few surgical staff receive such training. It is suggested that models exist to easily meet this training need and opportunity.