Experiences of front-line nurses caring for patients with COVID-19 in Bangladesh: A qualitative study

Abstract

Background: As the incidence of COVID-19 is increasing, the Bangladesh government has announced a countrywide shutdown instead of a lockdown. Consequently, front-line healthcare workers, particularly nurses, are confronting more challenging situations at work.
 Objective: This study aimed to explore front-line nurses’ experiences caring for patients with COVID-19 in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
 Methods: A qualitative descriptive study was conducted among front-line nurses caring for patients with COVID-19. Twenty nurses were purposively chosen from January to March 2021 to participate in semi-structured online interviews. Interviews on audio and video were collected, analyzed, interpreted, transcribed verbatim, and verified by experts. Thematic analysis was used.
 Results: Nine themes emerged and were grouped into negative and positive experiences. The themes of negative experiences include lack of necessary medical equipment, use of non-standard personal protective equipment, work overload, long working hours, poor working environment, and lack of quality of nursing care. The positive experiences include feeling self in a patient position, nurses’ coping strategy in COVID-19 patient care, and establishing emotional control.
 Conclusion: The study results encourage national and international health care professionals to cope with adverse working environments. Also, the findings provide nurses with techniques for dealing with any critical situation, controlling patients’ emotions, and how empathy increases self-confidence and patient care. The research should also be used to enhance government policy, nursing council policy, ministry of health policy, and other healthcare agencies.

Coping strategies that motivated frontline nurses while caring for the COVID‐19 patients during the pandemic: A scoping review

“…A few nurses surrendered to God (Allah) after realizing that He is in charge of everything and that they must try their best in order to please Him (Tosepu et al, 2021). Thus, nurses used prayers, meditation and other techniques to improve their emotional responses (Rony et al, 2021).…”

“…In this scoping review, we explored how nurses were able to adapt to the challenging situations. Most of the studies uncovered nurses' self‐strategies to deal with difficult situations (Demirci et al, 2021; Huang et al, 2020; LoGiudice & Bartos, 2021; Manik et al, 2021; Ohta et al, 2021; Pogoy & Cutamora, 2021; Rony et al, 2021; Tosepu et al, 2021; Zhang et al, 2020; Zhou et al, 2021). Rony et al (2021) described how nurses imagined themselves in the patients' position and how nurses controlled patients' emotions.…”

“…Most of the studies uncovered nurses' self‐strategies to deal with difficult situations (Demirci et al, 2021; Huang et al, 2020; LoGiudice & Bartos, 2021; Manik et al, 2021; Ohta et al, 2021; Pogoy & Cutamora, 2021; Rony et al, 2021; Tosepu et al, 2021; Zhang et al, 2020; Zhou et al, 2021). Rony et al (2021) described how nurses imagined themselves in the patients' position and how nurses controlled patients' emotions. Lin et al (2021) revealed that nurses' self‐strategies helped them become more professional and inspired them to practice mindfulness.…”

“…Nurses adopted self-strategies to deal with the COVID-19 emergency according to a majority of the studies. Nurses felt they were in the position of patients, and nurses' resilience in emergency situations aided them in handling work stress (Rony et al, 2021). Pogoy and Cutamora (2021) discussed that several nurses realized that life is short and they should value it; thus, nurses united together to minimize work burden.…”

Future Challenges Related To The Bangladeshi Health Sector Through The Impact Of Various Factors.

“…"It would be suicidal to serve people without any protection during this epidemic." 19 What are the Challenges? All of these factors are a major cause of dissatisfaction with nurses' jobs.…”