An analysis of the uprising nursing shortages during the Covid 19 pandemic

Abstract

The study investigated factors that led to an uprising in nursing shortages during the Covid-19 pandemic. A literature review approach was utilized and articles allowing the researcher to adrress questions were ac cessed from two main databases, CINAHL and Medline. Data were analyzed using content analysis and three main themes, psychological and emotional impacts, leadership and organizational challenges and workload and staffing issues emerged from the literature. Findings showed that, nursing shortages during the pan demic were caused by several factors. These are, burnout and exhaustion, fear of infection and mental health challenges under the psychological and emotional impacts theme. Additionally, findings indicated that, inad equate resource allocation, decreasing work engagement and lack of training resulted in an uprising in nurs ing shortages during Covid-19 in line with the leadership and organizational challenges theme. Moreover, the investigation showed that, workload and staffing issues including increased patient to nurse ratio, extended work hours and job dissatisfaction played a role in the rise of nursing staff shortages during the pandemic.