Nursing professional’s experiences during the implementation of the pediatric COVID-19 death protocol.

Abstract

Introduction: The global health crisis at the end of 2019 caused by the Sars-Cov-2 virus posed a huge challenge to health professionals; the city of Córdoba, Argentina, was not exempt from this scenario. The following report showed how the COVID-19 death protocol, implemented in children at a public hospital from this city, caused a lot of professionals to feel the emotional impact of carrying out this duty. Objective: To establish the experiences of nursing professionals who provided medical care at a COVID-19 critical care unit at a Public Hospital in the city of Córdoba, during the implementation of the pediatric COVID-19 death protocol. Methodology: A qualitative, descriptive, cross-sectional, phenomenological-interpretative study was carried out through in-depth interviews with nursing professionals. The sample consisted of ten nurses with more than three years of experience in pediatric intensive care and who carried out the COVID-19 death protocol at the Public Facility in this city. Two of the nurses did not accept to take part in the study and one of them could not be contacted, since she was on leave. The number was enough to achieve data saturation, heterogeneity, idoneity and variability. The method of analysis used was content analysis. Results: The findings were organized according to the specific objectives and the chronological moment of each event, and were presented in categories such as the conceptualization of the findings, the narratives on which they are based, and the researchers’ theoretical and subjective interpretation of them. Conclusion: Firstly, the categories that emerged were uncertainty, fear of the unknown, repressing the lived experience and trying to avoid awareness of its occurrence. Secondly, the categories were sadness, anguish and depersonalization of the patient. Thirdly, the categories were support and teamwork, empathy, well-being and task completion relief. Both good and bad experiences bring about learning. While, as stated in this research, nursing is prepared to provide support during the death process, the importance of delivering the bodies of children who leave this world was analyzed, that is, the importance of giving them a dignified farewell filled with the human warmth of those who are present in their last moments.