Nursing Challenges during COVID-19 Pandemic: Lesson Learned for the Future Crisis

Health systems have been exposed to innumerable challenges by COVID-19.The present study aimed to detect nursing challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. This qualitative study was conducted in 2021; 26 subjects were selected using thepurposive sampling method and interviewed. Data saturation was reached after analyzing thedata collected from 26 semi-structured interviews. The collected data were analyzed using thecontent analysis approach with MAXQDA software version 10. Three main themes and some subthemes were extracted: “Managerial challenges,”“Educational challenges,” and “Individual challenges”. Some managerial challengesencompassed the following subthemes: lack of adequate workforce and equipment, nontimelypayment of claims, and employment of non-specialist personnel instead of nurses.Educational challenges encompassed the following subthemes: virtual training, lack oftraining, lack of training on commitment to the profession, lack of training to work inparticular wards and training in dealing with critical patients. Furthermore, some individual’schallenges contained the following subthemes: decreased job motivation, fear of illness,stress, and anxiety. An analysis of the themes and subthemes in this study indicated that there weremanagerial, educational, and individual nursing challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.It is, therefore, recommended that policymakers and senior managers of the health systemformulate and implement programs at the micro- and macro-levels to address the detectedchallenges.