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. 2023 Nov;28(4):914-929.
doi: 10.1111/bjhp.12661. Epub 2023 Mar 30.

How the COVID-19 crisis affected the well-being of nurses working in paediatric critical care: A qualitative study

Jackson Pountney  1 , Isabelle Butcher  2 , Peter Donnelly  3 , Rachael Morrison  4 , Rachel L Shaw  1
Affiliations

How the COVID-19 crisis affected the well-being of nurses working in paediatric critical care: A qualitative study

Jackson Pountney et al. Br J Health Psychol. 2023 Nov.

Abstract

Objectives: Evidence shows paediatric critical care (PCC) nurses display high rates of burnout, moral distress, symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and poor well-being. The COVID-19 pandemic magnified these pressures producing extremely challenging working conditions. The objective was to understand PCC nurses' lived experience of working during COVID-19 to determine the impact it had on their well-being.

Design: A qualitative design was used with individual, semi-structured online interviews analysed using thematic analysis.

Results: Ten nurses from six PCC units in England participated. Five themes were generated: (i) Challenges of working in Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), (ii) Adapting to redeployment to adult intensive care, (iii) Changes to staff working relationships, (iv) Being unable to attain work-life balance and (v) Unprocessed traumatic experiences of working in COVID-19. It was clear COVID-19 presented novel challenges to PCC nurses' well-being. With those came enforced changes in practice; some were temporary, for example use of PPE and redeployment, but others provided insight into the prerequisites for good staff well-being, for example strong professional relationships, work-life balance and managing one's psychological health.

Conclusions: Findings show authentic connections between peers, verbal and non-verbal communication and a sense of belonging were crucial to nurses' well-being. A dent in PCC nurses' perceived competence significantly affected their well-being. Finally, staff need a psychologically safe space to process distress and trauma experienced during COVID-19. Future research needs to test evidence-based, theoretically-informed well-being interventions to improve and maintain PCC nurses' well-being.

Keywords: COVID-19; burnout, professional; intensive care units; occupational stress; paediatric; paediatric nurse practitioners.

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References

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