The experiences of the ICU permanent professional nurses working with agency nurses at a private hospital in Gauteng

Abstract: In South Africa, doctors and skilled professional nurses such as Intensive Care Unit (ICU) nurses, emigrate in significant numbers, causing the country a great loss toits developed skills base leading to the utilisation of agency professional nurses. Working with agency professional nurses in ICU places permanent professional nurses in a challenging situation: they have to carry great responsibility and are accountable for providing quality care while continuously supervising and working with agency professional nurses who are unfamiliar with the ICU environment. ICU professional nurse must undertake a leadership role, be facilitators and act as role models, while advocating the provision of quality care. The purpose of the study was to explore and describe the experiences of ICU permanent professional nurses working with agency professional nurses at a private hospital in Gauteng, in order to describe recommendations to support ICU permanent professional nurses. In this study, a qualitative, explorative, descriptive,phenomenological design that is contextual in nature was used. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and data saturation was reached at the 15th participant when no new information was emerging. The data was analysed using Tesch’s protocols.Trustworthiness was ensured by using strategies, namely: credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability according to Lincoln and Guba. Ethical principles were adhered to.Four themes emerged: (1) Lack of knowledge of the agency nurses; (2) Negative attitude of agency professional nurses; and (3) Lack of skills of the agency professional nurses; and (4) Reduced workload by the agency professional nurses. The themes were conceptualised within the relevant literature. Recommendations to support the ICU permanent professional nurses working with agency professional nurses at a private hospital in Gauteng were described.M.Cur