Nursing students' experience of providing frontline COVID-19 support: A qualitative study.

Understanding the unique experience of nursing students providing frontline support in COVID-19 hospital wards is crucial for the design of strategies to improve crisis management and mitigate future pandemic outbreaks. Limited research concerning this phenomenon has been published. This qualitative study aimed to understand the experience of providing support from COVID-19 frontline nursing students' perspective. Online interviews were conducted with nine nursing students from April to May 2020; interview data were analyzed by content analysis using Burnard's method. Six main categories emerged from the data analysis: "experiencing a rapid transition from student to professional," "fear and uncertainty of the unknown," "resilience throughout the crisis," "sense of belonging to a team," "shared responsibility," and "importance of the profession." Based on these findings, multicomponent strategies that function in parallel with practical contexts should be developed to enable students to diligently adapt their abilities to their new role and cope with health crises.

Experiences of frontline nurse managers during the COVID-19: A qualitative study.

AIM: To explore experiences of frontline nurse managers during COVID-19. BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has complicated care provision and healthcare management around the world. Nurse managers have had to face the challenge of managing a crisis with precarious resources. Little research has been published about the experiences of nurse managers during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: A qualitative descriptive study of 10 frontline nurse managers at a highly specialized university hospital in Spain was carried out. Semi-structured interviews were conducted between June and September 2020. The Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research checklist was used for reporting. RESULTS: Six themes emerged: constant adaptation to change, participation in decision-making, management of uncertainty, prioritization of the biopsychosocial well-being of the staff, preservation of humanized care and 'one for all'. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides evidence for the experiences of nurse managers during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, analysing these experiences has helped identify some of the key competencies that these nurses must have to respond to a crisis and in their dual role as patient and nurse mediators. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Knowing about the experiences of frontline nurse managers during the pandemic can facilitate planning and preparing nurse managers for future health disasters, including subsequent waves of COVID-19.