Nurses' reactions to participation in cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the nursing unit.

A wide range of emotions are associated with cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) attempts. Articles documenting nurses' reactions to CPR situations are scarce in the nursing literature. This study contains nurses' own descriptions of feelings experienced during and after CPR attempts and the nurses' suggestions for what could make the experience easier, what makes it more difficult, and what interventions the nurses use to reconcile their emotions. The participants were 29 registered nurses employed at an urban Midwestern hospital who completed an open-ended questionnaire that elicited descriptions of CPR events. The data were analyzed using a process of thematic analysis.