Nurses’ Experiences on Self-Protection when caring for COVID-19 patients

COVID-19 as a pandemic disease caused many deaths across the world and imposed considerable pressure on health care systems as well as healthcare providers. This study was conducted to clarify the elements and dimensions of experiences among nurses when caring for COVID-19 patients.

This qualitative study was performed using the content analysis method in 16 nursing staffs that were responsible for caring for patients with COVID-19 selected by purposive sampling in April 2020. Deep semi-structured interviews in experimentation format was used to collect data. All interviews were recorded and typed in the MAXQDA software and then analyzed by eight steps including writing interviews, determining the semantic units, text coding, matching codes with text, categorizing and developing categories, reviewing the categories, identifying the subthemes and reporting the findings.  

Overall, 223 codes were extracted from the interviews and after the integration of similarities three key themes including personal protection, structural protection and safety problems were obtained indicating participants’ experiences on self-protection when.

Themes such as personal protection, structural protection and safety problems are the most important concerns raised when nurses caring for COVID-19 patients and should be considered when planning to protect nursing health.