Management Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic Situation of Nurse Supervisors at the Tertiary Hospital in Three Provinces of the Southern Border Area, Thailand

Abstract

The purpose of this descriptive phenomenology research was to study the management experiences and meaning given to these experiences of nurse supervisors at a tertiary hospital in the three provinces of the southern border area during the COVID-19 pandemic. The informants were 26 registered nurses who worked in a tertiary hospital in a province of this area and performed the nurse supervisor role during this situation. Data were collected by two focus group discussions and 21 in-depth interviews were conducted from April to June 2022 and Colaizzi's method was used for analysis. The research trustworthiness was approved following Lincoln and Guba’s concept.

The study findings were as follows. The nurse supervisors provided meaning regarding their management experiences of three themes: 1) working with a higher level of stress than usual, 2) solving immediate problems, and 3) learning from experiences and situations. The management experiences comprised six issues: 1) bed management for patient admission as much as possible, 2) nursing workforce management appropriately with the workload, 3) encouragement; to listen, solve and encourage nurse 4) management an infection prevention and control 5) dealing with conflicts from working, and 6) accurate and timely report of data and information related to the pandemic situation. This study provides the basic information for nursing administrators to plan a training program for nurses who are further in-charge nurse supervisors and prepare the operational plans when facing the crisis situation within the context of tertiary hospitals similar to those in three provinces of the southern area.