Adapting Nursing Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Staff Nurses’ Experiences, Lessons Learned, and Implications for Nursing Management

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic experiences of nurses presented many challenges to all aspects of society, including healthcare. Nursing care must adapt to these changes amidst this pandemic to ensure quality nursing care. Thus, exploring the changes in nursing care for COVID-19 patients is essential in understanding how nurses adapt and adjust during a pandemic. This study explored the experiences of staff nurses in providing nursing care during COVID-19 and how they adapted their nursing care to the situation during the pandemic. Using the qualitative phenomenological design, utilizing a semantic thematic approach, 15 nurses in COVID-19 units in government hospitals in Saudi Arabia participated in this study. The study conducted in-depth face-to-face and Zoom interviews from September to December 2021. The analysis followed the steps of the semantic thematic approach. This study showed the evolving nursing care for COVID-19 patients in six major themes: emotional instability, learning, re-learning, and unlearning nursing care, resourcefulness in nursing practice, accepting and adjusting nursing roles, living with COVID-19, and spiritual belief and care. It was uncovered that nurses experienced emotional instability during the pandemic. The pandemic also provided opportunities for nurses to learn new knowledge and skills on COVID-19 prevention, protection, and intervention. They further re-learned basic knowledge on infection control and unlearned nursing practices that were not correctly performed before the pandemic.