Dianna Jo Copley

1 Background Nurses are responsible for the holistic care of patients and their families (American Nurses Association 2025; ICN 2021), and often navigate ethically complex situations and decisions (Johnstone 2023). In previous research, nurses reported feeling unprepared to address ethically complex situations, which resulted in moral distress (Morley et al. 2020), burnout (Oh and Gastmans 2015), lack of professional satisfaction (McAndrew et al. 2018), and intention to leave (Epstein et al. 2019).

Abstract Aims To identify the personal and professional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on clinical nurses with regard to personal and workplace safety, personal and professional relationships and perceptions of their team, organization and community, and to understand lessons learned to inform future responses to pandemics or global emergencies. Design Qualitative, descriptive free-text surveys, informed by appreciative inquiry.