Emerging Frontline Leaders' Voices in Response to COVID-19 Crisis.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected healthcare institutions, introducing new challenges for nurse leaders and their colleagues. However, little is known about how the pandemic has specifically affected the lives of these leaders and what methods and strategies they are using to overcome pandemic-related challenges. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to examine the effect of the 2019 pandemic on emerging healthcare leaders and highlight methods and strategies they used to overcome pandemic-related challenges. METHODS: The participants in this study represent a diverse group of interprofessional healthcare faculty enrolled in a transformational leadership course (Paths to Leadership) when the pandemic first appeared. Three months into the pandemic, the leadership cohort was invited to participate in this qualitative study, exploring four questions: Q1: How have you transformed your working styles in response to the pandemic? Q2: How have you adjusted your personal life in response to the pandemic? Q3: How have you used leadership skills learned from Paths to Leadership during the pandemic? Q4: What lessons have you learned from the pandemic? Participant narratives were analyzed by a team of nurse researchers using conventional qualitative content analysis. RESULTS: Themes for Q1 (working styles) included shifted from face-to-face to telework, faced novel disease and decisions, worked more from home, and challenged to maintain contact with professional peers and team. Themes for Q2 (personal life) included accommodate adults working and children learning from home, looked for and found the positive, and continue to struggle. Themes for Q3 (leadership skills) included reflective practice, listening, holding, and reframing. Finally, themes for Q4 (pandemic lessons) included leadership, human connection, be prepared, taking care of ourselves, and connecting with nature. DISCUSSION: The 2019 pandemic brought hardships and opportunities to faculty members enrolled in an interprofessional transformational leadership course. In conjunction with this course, the pandemic provided a unique opportunity for participants to apply newly acquired relationship building, positive organizational psychology, and reframing skills during a time of crisis. Nursing leaders, whose educational offerings may be immediately "put to the test," may find our lessons learned helpful as they develop strategies to cope with unanticipated future challenges.

Parental Worrying, Family Functioning, and Quality of Life During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

BACKGROUND: The 2019 novel coronavirus pandemic has affected many aspects of American life, with reported increases in parental anxiety and adverse health outcomes among children. However, it is unknown how family functioning and parental anxiety may be associated with child health outcomes during this pandemic. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to explore associations among parental worrying, family functioning, and the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of middle and high school-aged children in the United States during the 2019 novel coronavirus pandemic. METHODS: Ninety-three parent-child dyads were recruited via snowball sampling through the WhatsApp messenger from December 2020 to February 2021 in this exploratory cross-sectional study. Each family completed a series of self-report measures, including the General Functioning Scale-Family Assessment Device and the Worry Domains Questionnaire for parent respondents and the KIDSCREEN-10 for child respondents. A hierarchical regression analysis was performed to examine effects of parental worrying and family functioning on the HRQoL of middle and high school-aged children. RESULTS: Lower levels of parental worrying and better family functioning predicted better child HRQoL, whereas parental worrying was associated with worse family functioning. The relationship between family functioning and child HRQoL did not differ by levels of parental worrying. Increased child age and parental education were associated with worse child HRQoL. DISCUSSION: The high socioeconomic status sample reported healthy family functioning during the 2019 novel coronavirus pandemic. Family functioning appears to improve child HRQoL consistently, even as parental worrying increases or decreases, although increased worrying would likely decrease family functioning and child HRQoL. The inverse relationships of parental educational attainment with family functioning and child HRQoL are surprising; they may be due to pandemic circumstances and the nature of the sample being high-socioeconomic status families with middle and high school-aged children.