Thammasat University students interested in the allied health sciences, sociology, and related subjects may find it useful to participate in a free 6 September Zoom webinar conference on Research nurses in the frontline: COVID-19 Field experiences, lessons and impact.
The event, on Tuesday, 6 September 2022 at 7pm Bangkok time, is organized by the Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, the University of Oxford, the United Kingdom.
The TU Library collection includes many books on different aspects of prevention and treatment of the Novel Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19).
Students are invited to register for the webinar at this link:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/3516608126302/WN_5z4T1rXhQleiVv7hrH70tg
As the webinar description posted online explains:
Research nurses in the frontline: COVID-19 Field experiences, lessons and impact
The effect of COVID-19 and its ripple effects are still being felt across virtually all health systems. Nurses as one of the most affected healthcare workers need a documentary of experiences and lessons being learnt on in the field of research, clinical settings, home care settings and many other fronts where nursing activities are being carried out. This webinar will be organized by Global Research Nurses and The Global Health Network in collaboration with African Nurses and Midwives Network and Blue Torch Home Care Limited.
Extensive research has been published about research nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. One example is Role of Nurses in Caring for Coronavirus (COVID-19) Patients: A Case Study published last year in the Royal Thai Navy Medical Journal. The article is by Unruan Klinkhajon, Suphansa Woramalee, and Suwadchalee Yajai, specializing in medicine and psychiatric nursing at the Nursing Department, Siriraj Hospital, Bangkok. Here is the article’s abstract:
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a dangerous pandemic disease that easily spreads and severely emerging throughout the world. It widely resulted in physical and psychological difficulties especially the latter which led to tremendous fear and anxiety in the general population, infected group, suspected group, family members of infected patients, and including healthcare professionals. All reactions occurred because of various causes such as insufficient knowledge and understanding regarding Coronavirus (COVID-19), incorrect actions, inability to adjust into an ongoing problem, and inadequate knowledge and understanding of personal psychological management. Nurses are health care professionals who play pivotal roles in providing care to patients to serve their needs in both physical and psychological dimensions. This article presents details concerning Coronavirus (COVID-19); nursing care and role of nurses in caring for Coronavirus (COVID-19) patients and a case study in the isolation unit.
Among several other examples is an editorial that appeared in May in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, Reflections on nursing research focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic
The author was Professor Debra Jackson, Order of Australia (AO), a nurse scientist and scholar affiliated with the Sydney Nursing School, University of Sydney, Sydney, Victoria, Australia. Her article begins:
The COVID-19 pandemic has consumed nursing for more than 2 years now. Nurses have been and remain at the heart of the response to the pandemic––nurses are central to preventative, curative and palliative activities associated with COVID-19, and have taken these roles on in addition to their usual roles. Nurses of all levels and career stages have responded to and been affected by the pandemic––from students of nursing, through to academic and executive nurses. Nurse researchers have also been very responsive to the pandemic. Like many other nursing and health journals, the Journal of Advanced Nursing has received literally hundreds of manuscripts focused on the pandemic, and we have published more than 200 papers on the COVID-19 pandemic over the past 2 years. These papers have come from all over the world and have focused on many areas of interest, but the most dominant topic by far has been on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the nursing workforce. Effects on the nursing workforce have been felt internationally––the hundreds of papers we have published shows that there is not an area of nursing or a geographical location that has escaped the effects of the pandemic.
Through the pages of the Journal of Advanced Nursing we have learned about many aspects of the pandemic and how it has been experienced all over the world. Nurse researchers were quick to scrutinize and synthesis the literature to ascertain the presenting signs and symptoms of adult hospitalized patients with COVID-19 at a time when still little was known about the virus. There has been considerable recognition of the needs of particular populations such as older adults and those living with chronic conditions, as well as the effects of visitor restrictions in community and health settings, and particularly on the effects and impacts of these restrictions on minority populations. Issues such as loneliness, attitudes and views on vaccination and health disparity have been raised and interrogated in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic…
However, regardless of the challenges and stressors presented by the pandemic, Ke et al. (2021) found that most frontline nurses demonstrated strong professional commitment and were prepared to continue to work during the pandemic. These authors also suggest some strategies that are important to nurses’ willingness to work, including provision of emotional support, recognition of and reward for the nursing contribution, ensuring the availability of appropriate resources, including PPE, access to appropriate training and social support, and coordinating appropriate and realistic working hours.
Despite the pressures brought about by the pandemic, nurses have shown a willingness to innovate and change their practices. The pandemic created changes in the ways nurses could work and interact with patients and consumers and was a catalyst for nurses to develop new and inventive ways to deliver services. Skill mix and staffing models were changed to build capacity as a response to the demands of the pandemic, and where possible, services adopted various forms of remote working and telehealth, which was seen to be useful and effective in some ways but problematic in others. Nurses identified issues with delivering alcohol and drug services through telehealth, though this modality was seen as being successful as an adjunct service to people living in regional or remote locations or with those consumers who had a preference for telehealth.
Patient safety has remained a central concern for nurse researchers during the pandemic. Nurses have been quick to recognize where there have been unintended and deleterious outcomes to patients and to take steps to better understand and mitigate the issues…
Despite the proliferation of papers on the pandemic, many questions remain. There are several areas that have had relatively little attention, or that require further scrutiny. The longer term effects of the pandemic on the nursing workforce are yet to be fully understood and this includes effects on the emergent workforce, as newly graduated nurses have experienced various forms of educational disruption, and are entering a more stressed environment. Changes to skill mix and staffing models and metrics were enacted during the pandemic, and it is yet to be seen whether these changes will be retained or if previous models and metrics will be restored, in either original or modified ways. We know that many clinical services were curtailed or restricted during the very acute stages of the pandemic because of the need for staff and resources to be redirected to the pandemic. This resulted in some suspension and modification of services, and large scale redeployment of nurses into different clinical areas. There has not yet been many empirical studies of the effects of this redeployment on patient care and outcomes for patients or on the nurses who were redeployed. Undoubtedly this strategy will be scrutinized and future research findings will be very useful in considering the ways that redeployment can be used in future events.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)