Nurses Caring for COVID-19 Patients and Mental and Emotional Struggles

Nurses Caring for COVID-19 Patients and Their Mental and Emotional Struggles
Student's First Name, Middle Initial(s), Last Name
Institutional Affiliation
Course Number and Name
Instructor's Name and Title
Assignment Due Date
Nurses Caring for COVID-19 Patients and Their Mental and Emotional Struggles
Introduction
Undeniably, the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak has had a significant impact on people's lives worldwide. Apart from altering the daily routines, the disease has resulted in severe financial pressures. Again, individuals are always worried about getting sick and infecting their loved ones. During such a crisis, it is common for everyone, specifically the nurses and patients, to experience overwhelming and increased levels of substantial mental and emotional distress. These include fear, stress, and anxiety due to different public health actions such as social isolation, making one feel lonely (CDC, 2020). Besides, the current rumors and misinformation about the infection can make their living out of control because it is unclear what to do. Recently, the high Covid-19 pandemic's prevalence, its intense transmittable nature, and the related death rates are placing an extraordinary demand for effective care services globally. The scenario has also resulted in increased anxiety about the patients, the possibility of infecting relatives, and the disease's economic effect among the nurses caring for Covid-19 patients (Maben & Bridges, 2020). Since the pandemic's outbreak, the nursing professionals have had unrelenting pressure due to various factors, including long hours caring for the patients, fears regarding contracting the virus, social isolation from their loved ones, and redeployment, leading to severe mental and emotional struggles. Hence, a practical solution is necessary to help them cope with the situation while providing quality health services to deserving patients.
Problem/ Issue
As mentioned earlier, the nature of care that the Covid-19 patients need and the new working strategies are potentially stressful for the nurses. Apart from encountering an increased workload, these practitioners are having challenges accommodating new protocols and norms. For example, many psychological health services have faced a significant transformation from offering physical care to a predominantly virtual undertaking via a phone or a video consultation. In other scenarios, health practitioners are still adjusting to providing end-of-life care regularly than they used to experience. Besides, the new social distancing and isolation rules mean that they rarely get adequate time to spend with their families. Today, they must make more difficult ethical and moral judgments in clinics, care homes, and society worldwide (Maben & Bridges, 2020). Other challenges include the lack of testing for the front-line workers and the disparity in access to PPE. Therefore, it can be difficult for nurses not to develop strong mental and emotional responses to the coronavirus and its influence on one's works, including fear, worries, anger, and frustrations. Indeed, nurses have a relatively higher risk of encountering mental health effects due to the concerns about their wellbeing and that of their relatives and friends....