A Qualitative Exploration of Turkish Operating Room Nurses’ Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Background: Apart from the patients affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, it was extremely important to apply appropriate protective measures by minimizing the possibility of infection to patients in need of surgery, to provide personal protective equipment for the safety of the staff in the operating room and to take isolation measures for cases where COVID-19 was suspected. The purpose of this phenomenologically designed multi center study was to examine the experiences of operating room nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: In depth semi-structured interviews for an average 45 to 60 minutes were conducted with 14 operating room nurses. Data analysis was performed using MAXQDA 20 software, and the descriptive and relational analysis method was used. A total of 330 primitive code were obtained. Results: As a result of data analysis, 6 subcodes, 32 codes, 17 categories and three themes were defined. The themes were defined: (a) categories of the theme of psycho-social dilemma: feelings about the pandemic, feelings about the test result, and feelings regarding case management, (b) categories of the theme of management of corporate risk perception: precautions, closure to the recovery unit, patient admission process, team and environment preparation process, team-patient relations, surgery process, post-operation process and training and (c) categories of the theme of process challenges: difficulty of working conditions, ignorance, appropriations/ payment injustice, loss of time, increased workload and lack of protective equipment. Conclusion: We determined that the participants had extensive experience. The results showed it is important to provide adequate equipment, to provide training, to eliminate the appropriations/ payment injustice and to provide psychosocial support to the operating room nurses during the global epidemic.