Help! Caring for People With Mental Health Problems in the Emergency Department: A Qualitative Study.

INTRODUCTION: After coronavirus disease 2019, there has been an increase in patients in the emergency department with mental health conditions. They are usually received by professionals who are not specialized in mental health. This study aimed to describe nursing staff's experiences in the emergency department, in the care they provide to people with mental health problems who often feel stigmatized by society and also in health care settings. METHODS: This is a descriptive qualitative study with a phenomenological approach. The participants were nurses from the Spanish Health Service from the emergency department of the Community of Madrid hospitals. Recruitment was performed by convenience sampling snowball sampling until data satruation was met. Data were collected through semistructured interviews conducted during January and February 2022. RESULTS: The exhaustive and detailed analysis of the nurses' interviews made it possible to extract 3 main categories-health care, psychiatric patient, and work environment-with 10 subcategories. DISCUSSION: The main study findings were the need to train emergency nurses to be prepared to care for people who experience mental health concerns including bias education and the need for implementation of standardized protocols. Emergency nurses never doubted their ability to care for people experiencing mental health disorders. Still, they recognized that they needed specialized professionals' support at certain critical moments.

Back to Clinical Training during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Perspective of Nursing Students.

INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected many areas of life, including the formation of nursing students. After the COVID-19 crisis, learning during clinical training created different challenges. Nursing schools are responsible for ensuring that structures are in place to facilitate coping in the changed clinical setting. This study aimed to analyze nursing students' perceptions during clinical training while caring for COVID-19 patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A qualitative phenomenological study that explored nursing students' perceptions of learning in clinical settings with COVID-19 patients was performed. A total of 15 semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with nursing students who carried out their clinical practices in COVID-19 units during February and April 2022. RESULTS: Through content analysis, categorization, and the method of comparison constant, four categories emerged: feelings, challenges, coping methods, and clinical practices. The students had to learn to "work" with fear and uncertainty and self-manage the emotional burden using different coping techniques to deal with learning during their practices. Interacting with professors and clinical tutors during the clinical practice were positive experiences. CONCLUSIONS: This study constituted an opportunity to build new and adapted educational approaches for teachers to train nursing students to deal with their emotions and thoughts in future pandemic situations.

Challenge, fear and pride: nursing students working as nurses in COVID-19 care units.

CONTEXT AND PURPOSE: During the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain, students in the year of undergraduate degree were hired to provide care assistance support in hospitals. The purpose of the study is to explore their experiences of their premature professional incorporation into patient care in a pandemic situation. METHODS: A descriptive phenomenology research study was conducted. Data were collected in two phases: 1) Two focus groups and 2) Ten in-depth individual semi-structured interviews between July and August 2021. RESULTS: Twenty-two Nursing students from a Madrid University School of Nursing participated. All worked in COVID hospitalization units, 6 in intensive care units. Four main categories were identified. Student-professional nurse transition, Learning, Hospital integration and Emotions. CONCLUSION: Despite all the fears and negative emotions, the nursing students do not regret the decision to accept a contract to work as a healthcare professional in the COVID-19 pandemic. They feel that the pandemic has allowed them to see life from another perspective and with other priorities, strengthening their vocation to nursing.