A reflective account on delivering psychological first-aid by phone to critical care nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Background: COVID-19 presented critical care nurses with significant challenges. Due to the volume of patients requiring intensive care, bed capacity was quadrupled virtually overnight, with non-critical care trained staff re-deployed into intensive care units (ICUs) to support existing teams. This increased workload, acuity of patients, increased death, lack of visiting due to infection prevention measures, and the need to support re-deployed staff, had a significant impact on staff wellbeing and psychological health. Aim: The aim of this paper is to reflect upon the author's experiences as a nurse consultant in supporting critical care nurses delivering care in ICUs to critically ill patients with COVID-19. Sources: The experiences of critical care nurses working during the COVID-19 pandemic, which were gathered from conversations via the semi-structured psychological first aid (PFA) process. Discussion: Advanced practitioner ‘four pillar thinking’ is a critical in-service development that can be used to bring about a responsive, robust and vigorous service in and outside of any future pandemics. Summary and implications: Critical care nurses' psychological health and wellbeing was, and still has been, significantly impacted by providing treatment during COVID-19. To ensure the wellbeing of the staff group, healthcare professionals need to identify support mechanisms that will continue to ensure their mental health and wellbeing remain intact. Such measures will enable them to deliver expert care at times of increased demand, as well as support recruitment and retention strategies. This experience highlighted the importance of providing psychological first aid within support services to critical care staff.