Major
Nursing
Minor(s)
Thanatology
Advisor
Murphy, Sara
Advisor Department
Honors Program
Date
12-2021
Keywords
Nursing; Thanatology; COVID-19; Death
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.
Abstract
The purpose of this project was to identify the impact that COVID-19 related deaths have had on nurses with limited bedside experience in the state of Rhode Island. Exploring the level of preparedness that nurses felt to deal with death can provide insight into nursing and employer education. Hearing about nurses’ experiences during the pandemic helps illustrate the current state of nurses’ mental health. Gaining a better understanding of the amount and types of support that nurses on the frontlines are receiving can identify current gaps and potential areas of improvement. I found that the COVID-19 pandemic and related deaths have had negative impacts on nurses, especially nurses with limited experience. This study demonstrated that most nurses experienced significantly increased workloads, the onset or worsening of several negative emotional and physical symptoms, passion fatigue and burnout, and lacked easily accessible support services by their employer. Additionally, most nurses felt unprepared to deal with death as they lacked training and education by schools and employers to have difficult conversations about death with patients and their families. These results suggest that more education regarding end-of-life care should be included in nursing programs and employers should provide better support and working conditions for their employees to set nurses up for continued success and career satisfaction even during global pandemics.