Working together: critical care nurses experiences of temporary staffing within Swedish health care: A qualitative study

The aim of this study is to describe critical care nurses (CCN's) experiences of working with or as temporary agency staff.This explorative qualitative study is based on interviews with five agency CCNs and five regular CCNs, a total of ten interviews, focusing on the interviewees' experiences of daily work and temporary agency staffing. The interviews were analysed manually and thematically following an inductive approach.Four themes that illustrate both similarities and differences between regular and temporary agency CCNs emerged: "working close to patients versus being responsible for everything", "teamwork versus independence", "both groups needed" and "opportunities and challenges".The study findings illustrate the complexity of the working situation for agency and regular staff in terms of the organisation and management of the temporary agency nurses and the opportunities and challenges faced by both groups.