Emergency Nurse Roles, Challenges, and Preparedness in Hospitals in the Context of Armed Conflict

Introduction: Emergency nurses’ views on their roles, challenges, and preparedness in the context of armed conflict are necessary to capture in-depth insights into healthcare needs. They can identify the required education and training for emergency nurses and provide evidence of the situations of care in the context of armed conflicts. Unfortunately, the evidence about these factors in the context of armed conflict is scant. Method: A semi-structured interview with 23 participants was conducted using qualitative content analysis. The study was conducted in Saudi border hospitals that are shared with Yemen. The COREQ guideline for reporting qualitative research was followed. Results: The emergency nurses’ roles in hospitals in the context of armed conflict discussed clinical nurses’ and head nurses’ roles. The main challenges that emergency nurses faced include poor orientation, access blocks, and communication barriers. Various perspectives about the preparation, including education, training, and strategies for preparing emergency nurses, were identified. The most striking findings in these settings were the diversity of armed conflict injuries, clinical profile, triage of mass causality, trauma care, surge capacity, orientation, communication, and strategies for preparing nurses. Conclusion: This study provided an estimate of the scope of ED nurses' roles, and how they were prepared across a range of hospitals in the armed conflict areas and therefore a snapshot of their experiences significant to be an informative resource for these settings. This study has provided essential implications for preparedness and planning. Given the large number of preparational courses being undertaken by ED nurses in these settings, the choice of the required education and training must be planned accordingly considering the clinical profile of patients in armed conflict areas, trauma care, triage of mass causality, surge capacity, safety and security, communication, policies, and law.