Understanding Rewarding and Challenging Nursing Experiences During the Pandemic in Five Countries: Toward Strengthening the Workforce.

INTRODUCTION: Nurses are now more likely to leave their current role in direct patient care than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic. Country culture and the organization of health care systems drive nurses' decisions to leave or stay in the profession. METHODS: In a fall 2020 survey of nurse professional quality of life, a content analysis of responses to the open-ended question, "What has been challenging or rewarding during this pandemic experience?" was performed. Results were organized within Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory. RESULTS: Six hundred and fifty-six nurses across five countries responded to the question; 526 comments were analyzed. Most (53.6%) respondents were staff bedside nurses. Themes, such as Distress and Fatigue and Building and Experiencing Social Capital were found and understood to reflect cultural values and dimensions such as Uncertainty Avoidance and Power Distance. DISCUSSION: Recommendations include strengthening culturally tailored leadership knowledge to inform and facilitate countries' nurse retention.

Nurses' resilience in the face of coronavirus (COVID-19): An international view.

The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine factors associated with nurses' resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected in the latter half of 2020 from 904 nurses across Japan, Republic of Korea, Republic of Turkey, and the United States. The questionnaire included the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale 10, plus demographics and 20 questions about practice environment, workplace safety concerning infection control, COVID-related experience, and organizational support. Fear of becoming infected, intention to leave nursing, and having had a positive COVID-19 test were inversely associated with resilience (p < 0.05). Regression analysis indicated that U.S. nurses had significantly greater resilience than nurses in the other countries examined (p < 0.001). Nurses reporting organization support and those who participated in policy and procedure development had higher resilience scores (p < 0.01). Organizational support, involving nurses in policy development, and country of practice were found to be important resilience factors in our research, which aligns with other findings. Further research is recommended to determine the optimal practice environment to support nurse resilience.