A study, published in the Journal of Nursing Scholarship, examined how nurses are impacted by disasters and how they can be best supported.
Researchers conducted in-depth interviews from April to June 2013 with a subsample of 16 nurses who participated in the evacuation deployment from New York City-based New York University Langone Medical Center during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. They also sent a cross-sectional survey to all registered nurses employed at the hospital during the storm. Between July and September 2013, 528 surveys were completed.
Researchers found nurses faced challenges in dealing with their personal concerns alongside their professional obligations. The nurses described facing unexpected job changes and resultant work uncertainty in the immediate recovery period. Additionally, some nurses had to cope with Hurricane Sandy's long-lasting impact on their personal lives and communal loss.
"Awareness of concerns and competing demands nurses experience in a disaster and aftermath can inform education and services to enable nurses to perform their critical functions while minimizing risk to patients and themselves," study authors wrote.