New Nurses’ Experience of Caring for COVID-19 Patients in South Korea

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of new nurses who took care of COVID-19 patients. For this study, study subjects were conducted with a total of nine new nurses, and data were collected through individual in-depth interviews from September to November 2020. The data were analyzed using the phenomenological analysis method suggested by Colaizzi. New nurses’ experience of caring for COVID-19 patients consisted of three categories. The three categories are “The fear as a new nurse about infectious diseases that they have not experienced”, “Physical and psychological burden in an isolated environment”’, and “Building professional values”. Findings from this study presented vivid experiences of new nurses who took care of COVID-19 patients. This study is meaningful in that it grasped the physical and psychological difficulties of nurses nursing COVID-19 patients, especially the difficulties as a new nurse, and the implications for developing and growing within them. It is expected that it will serve as basic data for the establishment of strategies for infectious education programs for new nurses.