Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Nurses: Where is the Financial Safety Net?

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic placed many nurses in financial distress. Nurses House, Inc. provided nurses with financial assistance through an emergency grant supported by the American Nurses Foundation. In a three-month period between April 2020 till July 2020, Nurses House, Inc. distributed $2,734,500 to a total of 2,484 qualified grantees from across the United States. This article offers a brief review of literature to provide context about the guiding framework of the grant, Watson’s Theory of Human Caring, as an essential tenet to nursing and to the mission of Nurses House, Inc, and the financial impact of the pandemic. We discuss the methods, data analysis, and results of our study that analyzed demographic information from the applications of grant recipients. Regression analysis showed that regardless of income levels, nurses experienced financial distress. The discussion considers our findings in relation to such areas as age and full-time or part-time work status of grantees; reasons to apply, such as testing positive for COVID=19 (78%), work mandated quarantine (16%) and caring for a family member (6%); and study limitations. The conclusion offers implications for practice based on our analysis, which demonstrated that financial safety nets are both essential and helpful for nurses in times of crisis.