Clinical nurses' experiences about "breaking bad news" during the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative study

Nurses have the most contact with COVID-19 patients and their families, while it is unclear how nurses react when they give bad news during pandemic disaster, particularly in the cultural and social context of Iran. So, our main purpose was to explore the experiences of clinical nurses about breaking bad news (BBN) in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic era.

The study was a qualitative content analysis approach. Data were collected by the purposive sampling method through in-depth interviews with 13 nurses in Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. The method of data analysis was conventional qualitative content analysis.

The participants of this study were 13 nurses. The work experience range was from 2 to 18 years, and in terms of education, one of them was Ph.D., eight had a bachelor's degree education, and four had a master's degree in nursing. Qualitative data of content analysis were obtained in four main categories such as nurses' avoidance of BBN, considering the patient's and family's beliefs in BBN, nurses' unpreparedness to deliver bad news during the pandemic crisis, and surrender of the patient and family members in the face of the COVID-19 bad news.

The results of the research showed that due to probability of occurrence of pandemic in the futureand also the nature of the nursing profession, so nurses should be familiar with the correct ways of BBN and existing protocols on crisis conditions and cultural and religious context of the society to provide a high quality of care for patients and their families.