Illness of nursing professionals who worked during the Covid-19 pandemic: integrative review

Abstract

Objective: To describe what has been published about the illness of nursing professionals who acted in the face of the covid-19 pandemic. Methodology: Integrative Bibliographic Review, carried out between July and August 2023, whose databases used were: LILACS, MEDLINE, BDENF, SCIELO. The crossing of the data took place through the descriptors with the Boolean operator AND and OR. The inclusion criteria applied were original works, published and available in full, in Portuguese and in the time frame that makes up the period from 2020 to 2023. The selection of studies was performed by reading the title and abstract, and then reading the text complete. Those selected had their data and results extracted and tabulated. After reading, 10 articles remained to corroborate the discussion. Results and Discussion: 106 studies were identified; 10 met the eligibility criteria and were included in the review. With regard to methodology, most are quantitative research (n=6; 60%), 2 were qualitative research (20%) and 2 were experience reports (20%). The most recurrent health problems in the publications were stress, occupational stress, Bournout syndrome, anxiety, depression, physical and emotional exhaustion, often associated with the fear of being infected and transmitting the disease to family and friends. Conclusions: The exhausting routine, distance from family, psychological stress, lack of Personal Protective Equipment, physical and mental exhaustion can contribute to the illness of nursing professionals.