News analysis of nursing work in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

Objective: To analyze the news published in the Brazilian press about nursing work during the COVID-19 pandemic period, between February 2020 and August 2021. Methods: This is a documentary, descriptive study with a qualitative approach. Elaborated from information collected on news sites, through clipping, following the stages of monitoring, collection, analysis and archiving of mentions of work in nursing made by the Brazilian media. The sample totaled 432 news. Data analysis was performed using the Thematic Content Analysis proposed by Laurence Bardin. Results The year 2020 stood out among the analyzed news (59.96%), whose characters involved were nursing professionals, female (36.57%), technical (38.89%) and higher (38. 43%). There was a predominance of news in the Southeast (45.83%) and Midwest (17.36%) regions. Six categories were identified for data analysis: deaths among workers (40.74%), precarious working conditions (28.94%), vaccination (8.56%), contamination of workers (8.33%), suspected of ethical infraction (8.10%) and COVID-19 cure (5.32%). Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil brought nursing work and workers to the center of journalistic debate. Death, precarious working conditions and contamination of nursing workers, reported in the press, are related to the precariousness of nursing work in this study. It is conjectured that the journalistic debate on nursing work in the COVID-19 pandemic helped to strengthen political guidelines, such as the one that led to the enactment of Law 14,434/2022, which deals with the national wage floor for these professionals.