Posted: September 1st, 2023

Nursing essay

American Journal of Nursing Research, 2020, Vol. 8, No. 5, 575-576
Available online at http://pubs.sciepub.com/ajnr/8/5/10
Published by Science and Education Publishing
DOI:10.12691/ajnr-8-5-10
The Implication of COVID-19 Pandemic
on Nursing Workforce
Nashi Masnad Alreshidi*
Regional Nursing Administration in Hail Region, Saudi Arabia
*Corresponding author: nmalreshidi@moh.gov.sa https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5864-084X
Received August 10, 2020; Revised August 21, 2020; Accepted August 30, 2020
Abstract The rise of Covid-19 cases became a worldwide outbreak and has made a great impact on the world
population including nursing workforce. Search of related literature was conducted to gather data similar to the study.
This review gives us a grip of the reality on what our nurses are experiencing in this time of pandemic. It gives a
summary of the holistic view of the frontline nurses body response to their work, with great challenge to
psychological and emotional aspects.
Keywords: Covid-19 Pandemic, nursing workforce, mental distress, compassion fatigue, burn-out
Cite This Article: Nashi Masnad Alreshidi, “The Implication of COVID-19 Pandemic on Nursing
Workforce.” American Journal of Nursing Research, vol. 8, no. 5 (2020): 575-576. doi: 10.12691/ajnr-8-5-10.
1. Introduction
Corona Virus Disease 2019 has been known to be a
public health crisis touching every sector including the
health care sectors [1]. This was named by the World
Health Organization as a “public health emergency of
international concern”.
There is a rapid spread of Covid-19 which has caused a
challenge worldwide in all aspects. The threat caused by
this pandemic is huge. The escalating number of cases has
alarmed every population more so with the medical
frontliners, the nurses in particular. A big part of the
challenges is posted to the frontline nurses. Covid-19 is a
newly identified disease; its vaccine and treatment are
under development. Nurses fulfill their professional
obligation compromising not only physical but also
psychological and emotional as well. It was found out in a
study that frontline nurses experienced many different
mental health challenges especially burn-out and fear [2].
In a report, nurses experienced a high level of anxiety and
the highest prevalence of anxiety [3,4,5]. Anxiety stems
from their fear of being infected and infecting their loved
ones. Some nurses have inadequate knowledge in handling
and caring for patients who are affected by the deadly
disease. It can also be added that they experience
discrimination in their communities. Nurses in critical care
settings have been observed to be experiencing severe
emotional distress which is associated with the
development of compassion fatigue/burn out [6]. The
demand is longer working hours, prolonged use of
Personal Protective Device (PPE) during longer shifts
under physically demanding environments. This poses a
negative effect on the nurses. They experience inadequate
breaks for personal care, hydration, and nutrition.
2. Methods
An electronic search of related literature was done to
gather relevant about the impact of covid-19 pandemic on
the nursing workforce.
3. Results
The review studies on how the current SARS-CoV-2
pandemic affects the well-being of nurses revealed that
frontline nurses experience physical exhaustion in addition
to mental distress.
4. Conclusion
The longer exposure to the routine pandemic working
environment, the more likely to have mental distress.
Revising the current working condition could reduce the
impact on nurses’ physical and mental health.
References
[1] World Health Organization. (2020). Mental Health and
Psychosocial Considerations During the COVID-19 Outbreak.
[2] Deying et al. (2020). Frontline Nurses’ burnout, anxiety,
depression, and fear statuses and their associated factors during
the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China: A Large-Scale CrossSectional Study. Elsevier Ltd.
[3] Alwani, S. et al. (2020). Evaluation of knowledge, practices,
attitude and anxiety of Pakistans nurses towards COVID-19
during the current outbreak in Pakistan. MedRxiv, 1- 26.
[4] Luo, Met al. (2020). The Psychological and Mental Impact of
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) on medical staff and
576 American Journal of Nursing Research
general public-A systematic review and meta-analysis.Psychiatry
Research, 291, 11319.
[5] Zhu et al., (2020). A novel coronavirus from patients with
pneumonia in China, 2019. N Engl J Med, 382(2020), pp.727-733.
[6] Alharbi, Jalal et al. (2020). The Potential for Covid-19 to
Contribute to Compassion Fatigue in Critical Care Nurses. Journal
of Clinical Nursing 2020; 29: 2762-2764.
© The Author(s) 2020. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).