Nurses' experiences during COVID-19 pandemic: Coping and resilience strategies in oncology setting. A multicenter mixedmethods study

ABSTRACT

Background: The study stems from the need to identify the resilience and coping mechanisms that oncology nurses adopted during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic and explore their individual experience. Little information is available to date on nurses about this topic, therefore, we designed a mixed-methods study to evaluate these strategies in nurses working in the oncology setting. Material and methods: A multicenter, sequential explanatory mixed-methods study will be conducted, in which quantitative and qualitative data will be collected and analyzed sequentially and individually. The study will begin in June 2021 and be conducted for 4 months in two Oncology Departments in Northeastern Italy (National Cancer Institute of Aviano and Teaching Hospital of Udine). The quantitative study will be based on the accuracy of estimating resilience with a 95% confidence interval and a standard deviation of 20% and 95%. Two questionnaires in Italian will be mailed to 276 nurses who have been working during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data will be collected through an electronic procedure (REDCap). The study findings will support the development of an interview guide for the qualitative study. Here, semi-structured interviews will be conducted involving a purposeful sampling until saturation. Interviews will be transcribed verbatim and the Colaizzi framework (1978) will be used for content analysis with the NVivo program. Results: Data collection has not yet started, but the results of both the quantitative and qualitative studies will be available by the time of the conference. Conclusions: We expect that this study will provide information about difficulties, resilience, and coping strategies adopted by oncology nurses who are working on the frontlines during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results will help the organization and nursing managers develop effective strategies to cope with future emergency situations.