Developing support strategies for burn care nurses through an understanding of their experiences: A meta-ethnographic study.

Abstract

To build a comparative understanding of nurses' experiences with caring for burned patients with the goal of eliciting possible support strategies. Considering the stressful nature of burns nursing, there is a need to develop support strategies for burn care nurses. This meta-ethnographic study used Noblit and Hare's approach and followed PRISMA guidelines. The search databases included PsycINFO, EbscoHost, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, and PubMed from 1990 to 2017. Qualitative studies were included in the review if they examined burn care nurses' experiences. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme quality assessment tool was used to appraise each study. Ten papers (six articles and four theses) published between 1998 and 2014 met the criteria for inclusion. Three key concepts were generated from the synthesis: becoming a burns nurse, work environment, and nurses' emotional responses. The relationships between the concepts were noted to be reciprocal, from which a line of argument was developed using Schutz notion of constructs. There is a need to establish structures that can encourage burn care nurses to verbalise their feelings as well as strengthen the nursing team.