The influence of experiences of involvement in the COVID-19 rescue task on the professional identity among Chinese nurses: A qualitative study.

Aims: To explore the influence of experiences of involvement in the COVID-19 rescue task on professional identity among Chinese nurses from a qualitative method perspective.
Background: Professional identity of nurses is not static and easily affected by many factors. The COVID-19 epidemic brings the tremendous physical and psychological challenges for rescue nurses. At present, there are limited data on the influence of rescue experiences on the nurses' professional identity.
Methods: This study used a face-to-face interview with semi-structured questions to learn about the influence of rescue experiences on the professional identity of nurses. Purposeful sampling was used to collect participants (n = 14), and interview data were analysed following the Colaizzi's phenomenological analysis.
Results: The 'impression of exhaustion and fear', 'feeling the unfairness', 'perceiving incompetence in rescue task' and 'unexpected professional benefits' were the main factors affecting the professional identity of rescue nurses.
Conclusion: The present study showed that special attention and targeted support measures should be provided to improve the professional identity of rescue nurses.
Implications for Nursing Management: Nurse managers should make a post-epidemic recovery plan to help nurses to improve the professional identity. Designed education programmes and complete disaster response system should be developed to deal with infection disease in the future.
(© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)