The Lived Experience of Redeployed Nurses during COVID-19 Pandemic of March- 2020 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)

Background: Following the unexpected breakout of COVID-19 from Wuhan and declaration of pandemic in March 2020 by World Health Organization (WHO) (Lake, 2020,), the world began to live in panic and a terror situation made worse by the lack of information and studies about the nature of virus that they are dealing with. Most of the research area is focused on the disease itself and it is rare to find paper about frontline (nurses) experience during this period; thus, there was an opportunity to review studies recently conducted to have an overview and background as a foundation for future research. Aims: The objective of this literature review was to find evidence of lived experience of nurses who were redeployed during COVID-19 through extensive search of articles relevant to the topic. Method: The method that was used is the review of current literature in a systematic manner. Finding: A summary of the main themes in the literature is negative emotions such as fear, anxiety and physical exhaustion were dominant in the early stage of the pandemic, then nurses were able to take care of themselves by utilizing coping strategy. Not only that they were able to grow professionally within this disaster (Kackin et al., 2020; Sun et al., 2020; Liu et al., 2020; Tan et al., 2020& Zhang et al., 2020). Conclusion: It is important to have further comprehensive research about frontline lived experience of nurses who were under great emotional and psychosocial impacts during the COVID-19 pandemic to enhance and develop the emergency care system.