LAUSR

Given events of an international pandemic where nurses serve as frontline care providers for COVID-19 patients, this paper is timely and provides much needed information regarding multiple stressors of clinical practice. It presents a compelling examination of how nurses respond to a new and exceptional healthcare crisis. While the context of these nurses ’ experiences is unique to their geographic location, nurse responses also contain universal elements experienced across cultures and geography. Investigators in this descriptive phenomenological study interviewed 13 male and female nurses caring for COVID-19 patients for approximately 5 months. Recorded semi-structured interviews were transcribed verbatim and systematically analysed. The overall theme was “ Caring from self-sacri fi ce to avoidance ” which re fl ected the anxiety felt by nurses, the physical and psychological conditions needed to provide humanitarian care, ethical considerations, and the challenges of overcoming a crisis.