An extensive literature review was performed using search words and terms; resilience, protective factors, psychological well being ,concept mapping, and nursing concept. Psychological resilience was the primary focus. No specific population or ages of individuals were requested in order to obtain the broadest scope of information. As a result over fifty books and articles were found using online databases but only about thirty – five were reviewed for this concept analysis. We excluded the remaining articles because they were not relevant for the population that we studied. Our inclusion criteria included studies that used resilience scales, research articles related to resilience and HIV / AIDs, articles focusing on global responses to traumatic events such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and violent acts and nurse’s response. Search engines that were used included PubMed, CINAHL, ProQuest, PsycINFO and Google Scholar.