Nurses' experiences and sense making of COVID-19 redeployment and the impact on well-being, performance, and turnover intentions: A longitudinal multimethod study.

Background: During Covid-19 nurses were redeployed to new teams and specialties at a level never previously experienced. Little is known about how nurses made sense of and coped with this situation and what we can learn from this for future redeployment approaches. Objectives: We sought to understand how nurses made sense of ongoing redeployment during the COVID-19 pandemic and how this related to their psychological distress, burnout, turnover intentions, and perceived performance. Design: A longitudinal multi-method design. (ISRCTN: 18,172,749). Settings: Three acute National Health Service (NHS) Trusts in England, selected for diversity in geographical location and ethnicity, with different COVID-19 contexts. Participants: Sixty-two nurses (90 % female; 83 % white) who experienced different types of redeployment during the pandemic, with an average of 17 year's post-registration experience (mean age 41 years). Methods: We gathered both interview and survey data from 62 nurses across two or three time points in 2020-2021 and sought to find commonalities and differences in patterns of experience using Pen Portrait analysis. Results: The pandemic redeployment process was life-changing for all nurses, personally and professionally Conclusions: Nurses made sense of their experiences of redeployment during Covid-19 differently which, in turn affected their outcomes. Given the stark differences in how nurses perceived their psychological distress, burnout, turnover intentions and performance across the journeys, the importance of understanding the cues (e.g. having autonomy) associated with each journey is apparent. Thus, our research provides clear guidance for managers to help them support nurses during redeployment.