Now, as nurses are hailed as health care heroes during the pandemic, we're faced with what to do about these psychological injuries, not only for the 4 million nurses in the US — the largest health care workforce in America — but for the rest of us who depend on them.
For the past five years, I've examined the types of psychological trauma that nurses experience. Along with Dr. John Thompson, my co-author, I've described them in our 2019 book, prophetic as it was published six months before Covid-19 first appeared in China.
Prior to the pandemic, nurses faced ethical and personal safety dilemmas during disasters and other emergencies. They saw patients suffer, not only from illness itself, but because of health care interventions, otherwise known as medically induced trauma (think of a patient on a ventilator).
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In a follow-up study after the book was published, I dug deeper, collected information from nurses, and learned of yet another type of psychological injury: insufficient resource trauma. This occurs when nurses don't have the staff, supplies, knowledge or access to other professionals to fulfill ethical or professional responsibilities. The pandemic has been a dark catalyst to seeing this urgent concern. In a survey of 32,000 nurses just completed by the American Nurses Association, 68% of nurses said they are worried about being short-staffed and 87% are very or somewhat afraid to go to work.
Demands for resources largely ignored for decades
A particularly big part of insufficient resource trauma comes from inadequate nurse staffing levels, which may lead to bad outcomes for both nurses and patients. The evidence for these outcomes, both compelling and consistent worldwide, is based on more than two decades of research. Having to forego what you know is right when there's just not enough staffing in a high-stakes environment feels like a betrayal of one's spirit. A nurse's sense of morality, of what is right and wrong, is endangered.
More recently, there has been a shortage of PPE (personal protective equipment) throughout US hospitals. But I know nurses who were told by employers to take care of Covid-19 patients regardless of whether or not adequate PPE was available. Clearly this was a danger to both nurses and patients; surely this qualifies as a traumatizing experience.
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Other nurses — some new, some working previously in non-acute care — have been deployed to critical care units. Understanding the technology of these complex environments requires a steep learning curve. The knowledge, then, to competently care for these patients may be considered an insufficient resource.
The toll on patients and nurses
Nurses, more than anything, strive to deliver high-quality care and connect with patients during their most vulnerable ti
