Nurses Lived Experiences, Burdens and Coping Strategies During COVID-19 Pandemic.

Abstract

This is a qualitative phenomenological study that was designed to navigate through nurses' lived experiences, burdens, and coping strategies while working with COVID-19 patients. The sample included 20 nurses who had worked with COVID-19 patients for more than or equal to 6 months. The interviews were conducted between October 1, 2021, and April 15, 2022. At that time, the third COVID wave had elapsed, and we were peaking on a fourth pandemic wave, so included participants had lived through a minimum of 2 to 3 peaks. Six themes emerged, which were: nurses coping with COVID-19 crisis, professional relationship burden, personal burden, environmental burden, physical symptom burden, and emotional burden of the crisis. Nurses' lived experiences during the pandemic were deep, intense, and moderately to highly affecting their ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. That experience opened nurses' eyes on countless number of challenges that require special attention, care, and preparation on many levels. The minimal preparatory levels are personal, departmental, organizational, and strategic.