A study on the psychological needs of nurses caring for patients with coronavirus disease 2019 from the perspective of the existence, relatedness, and growth theory

Abstract

a b s t r a c tObjective: This study aimed to explore the psychological needs of nurses caring for patients with coronavirus disease 2019 and to propose corresponding interventions. Methods: In-depth interviews were conducted with 10 nurses who cared for patients with COVID-19. Interview data were analyzed by category analysis from the perspective of the existence, relatedness, and growth theory (ERG). Results: The existence needs were mainly reflected in health and security needs, whereas the relatedness needs consisting mainly of interpersonal needs, humanistic concern needs, and family needs; further, the growth needs were mainly reflected as a strong need for knowledge. Existence needs were the main needs during the epidemic, with health and security needs influencing each other. Humanistic concern needs were the most important of the relatedness needs; interpersonal and family needs were also growing. Conclusion: It is found that the existence, relatedness, and growth needs coexist in clinical nurses. It is helpful to take effective interventions to meet their needs if the needs of nurses caring for COVID-19 patients could be perceived well. © 2020 Chinese Nursing Association. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). What is known?In the exploration of nursing staff incentive mechanism, nurses' professional needs and patients' psychological needs, the existence, relatedness, and growth (ERG) theory has been used to establish a better nursing staff incentive mechanism, improve nurses' professional status and analyze the patient's psychological needs, more importantly, it promotes the development and implementation of medical humanistic care. What is new?It is found that the existence, relatedness, and growth needs coexist in clinical nurses. The existence needs were mainly reflected in health and security needs, whereas the relatedness needs consisting mainly of interpersonal needs, humanistic concern needs, and family needs; further, the growth needs consisting mainly of knowledge needs.

A rapid review of the impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of health and social care workers: implications for psychological interventions

“…[45] Good hospital guidance was identi ed to relief stress in a study by H.Cai et al [23], and increasing selfknowledge was a coping strategy deployed by staff. Dissemination of knowledge was also mentioned in a qualitative study by Yin & Zeng [42]; participants described subjective stress reduction after their seniors explained relevant knowledge to them.…”

“…This study also reported PPE as a protective factor. [42] Heavy Workload: Longer working time per week was found to be a risk factor in a study by Mo et al [33] This, together with increased work intensity or patient load per hour, were themes in a mixed methods study of 37 staff of a clinic in Beijing [25] and a qualitative study of nurses in China [35], also suggesting heavy workload as a risk factor.…”

“…Adequate PPE: As mentioned above, PPE was found to be a protective factor when adequate and a risk factor for poor mental health outcomes when deemed to be inadequate. [23,42] Psychosocial Factors Resilience: One study assessed self-e cacy in dental staff and found that it was a protective factor. [34] Self-e cacy was also found to improve sleep quality by Xiao et al [40], whilst W.Cai et al [24] measured resilience using a validated measure and found it to be a protective factor against adverse MH outcomes.…”

“…[40] Team support was identi ed as a protective factor in a qualitative study by Sun et al [35] Good hospital guidance was also identi ed as a stress reliever by H. Cai et al [23], who found that HCWs expected recognition from the hospital authorities. This was echoed in a qualitative study of nurses in Wuhan where the desire for community concern was a strong need and tightly linked to the need for PPE and knowledge: [42] 'To be honest, I was very apprehensive before coming to the infectious department as support staff, but on the rst day here, the head nurse personally explained relevant knowledge such as disinfection and quarantine, and that helped me calm down a lot." "I hope that our society and government pay more attention to lack of personal protective equipment' [42] Discussion As a communicable disease and now a global public health emergency (PHE), COVID-19 places a unique challenge on our health and social care workforce that will disrupt not just their usual workplace duties but also their social context.…”

“…Several risk factors emerged, many in keeping with what has been found in other reviews. [3,4] Those with the strongest evidence were inadequate PPE [23,27,37,42], fear of infection [22,25,27] and heavy workload. [25,33,35] Consistent with prior outbreak data [3,47], there was also good evidence that close contact with COVID-19 cases was a predictor of higher levels of anxiety, depression and insomnia [29,30,32,38], although two studies appeared to show con icting results.…”