Evaluation of Nurses’ Challenges during Coronavirus Outbreak: A Qualitative Study

During the crisis of communicable diseases, nurses play an important role in controlling the disease and treating patients; therefore, the obstacles and challenges facing these medical personnel should be reduced.

The main goal of the present study was to evaluate the challenges faced by nurses during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

This qualitative study was conducted using the content analysis approach in 2021-22 in the city ABC. The participants in this study were 30 people who were selected from 10 different hospitals and included nursing managers (n=10), supervisors (n=10), and nurses (n=10). Sampling was done purposefully and continued until the information saturation point. Semi-structured in-depth interview was used individually based on the interview guideline to collect data.

The results showed that the challenges faced by nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic included 452 codes and 12 subcategories, which after the final classification of the data, 4 main challenge categories were obtained, which included human challenges (33 subcategories), financial challenges (15 subcategories), communication challenges (8 subcategories), and organizational challenges (27 subcategories).

Based on the results of the present study, it can be concluded that the challenges faced by nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic included human, financial, communication, and organizational obstacles. Recognizing the challenges can help formulate road maps and strategies for improving disaster preparedness and management in hospitals.