Dr Krishnavellie Chetty^1,, Dr Vasanthrie Naidoo², Dr Abdullah Bin Saleh Al Otiebi³, Dr Abdulaziz Shaher⁴

Globally, the Covid-19 pandemic has confronted Critical Care nurses with an even greater, unprecedented challenge and to a great extent, exposed them to many risk factors. This has a profound psychosocial and psychological impact on their mental health and their well-being. Although several studies examining nurses’ turnover intentions have been conducted, few studies have been conducted to explore how COVID-19 contributed to critical care nurses’ turnover intentions. The most strongly supported determinants at the individual level, were workplace stress and burnout, job dissatisfaction, and commitment factors affecting productivity during the pandemic. These determinants became more significant as the demand for nurses is increasing in these crucial times brought by the corona virus. The Corona virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has increased the pressure on the healthcare system around the world. The increase in the critical care nurses turnover during the pandemic reached its peak and this were related to many factors but predominantly fear of the unknown. This research Aims: was to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the shrinking workforce among the critical care nurses in a Saudi Arabian hospital. Methodology: In the proposed study, a qualitative, exploratory design was followed to explore the impact of COVID-19 on Critical Care nurses who nursed COVID-19 patients and their perceptions to leave the profession. A qualitative explorative phenomenological design was particularly relevant to this study as this approach allowed for engagement and interaction with the national Critical Care nurses through interviews whilst striving for subjectivity. The phenomenological method focuses on the experiences and feelings of participants to find shared patterns rather than individual characteristics of the research subjects. Analysis: Giorgi's four steps approach for data analysis was used to identify the various themes regarding the experiences of COVID-19 and influence on foreign and national Critical Care nurses. The aim of data analysis in this study was to identify commonalities and differences in the individual experiences of all participants. The goal was to keep the richness of the experiences that each participant had with the Covid-19 patients that they cared for whilst exploring the descriptive meanings of such experiences through the identification of essential themes. Results: The findings of the study were aligned to Alderfer’s ERG theory and provided evidence that foreign and national Critical Care nurses experienced psychosocial factors whilst caring for COVID-19 critically ill patients. Critical Care nurses experienced great stress when they were fighting against COVID-19 with their own needs for health, safety, interpersonal relationships and related knowledge. The findings from the study yielded the following three core needs: namely a need for survival; a need for relationships; and a need for growth and development. Therefore, under the direction of the leaders’ and executive management, the provision of prompt and relevant training for the prevention and control of Covid-19 would help reduce psychological panic and insecurity caused by inadequate knowledge. Conclusion: Further studies are needed to identify retention strategies and measure the wellbeing effectiveness in this population.

COVID-19, critical care nurses, workforce, turnover, workload