Emotional Experiences of Nurses Caring for Spinal Cord Injury Patients in Acute Mixed Wards

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to clarify the emotional experiences of nurses caring for patients with acute spinal cord injury. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five nurses who had experience nursing spinal cord injury patients in acute care mixed wards. As a result of the data analysis, seven categories of emotional experiences were extracted as background for the specificity of the disease of spinal cord injury and the characteristics of an acute care mixed ward. These nurses were hesitant to get involved because they feared for the future of their patients who had sustained spinal cord injuries. However, the emotional experience of “witnessing the positive changes in the patient during hospitalization” increased her orientation toward the patient. This suggests that the nurses moved from empathy to a process of building a supportive relationship with the patient. It also can be speculated that in the acute care mixed ward, nurses have a coping behavior that [the sense of inadequacy due to multiple tasks must be discounted], and that they unconsciously use strategies to transform their own feelings and cognitions about negative emotions. It is necessary for nurses to know their own emotions and thought patterns.