The experiences and challenges of nurses who become patients in a hospital setting: A scoping review of the literature

AimThis scoping review aimed to identify and describe evidence regarding the experiences of nurses when they become patients or when nurses care for other health professional-patients in a hospital setting.DesignA scoping review of internationally published peer-reviewed literature.Data SourcesA systematic search of peer-reviewed evidence was conducted in electronic databases: CINAHL, Medline, Scopus, ProQuest and PsycINFO.MethodsCritical appraisal, data extraction and summary were performed independently by two reviewers according to the scoping review framework developed by Arksey and O'Malley. Twenty-three publications from 1999 to 2021 were included in this scoping review.ResultsThis scoping review highlighted seven key themes as follows: (1) the challenges for nurse-patients and caregivers; (2) role ambiguity when a nurse becomes a patient; (3) the need for personalized care to consider the nurse's professional experience; (4) the requirement to not make assumptions about the registered nurse's knowledge; (5) loss of control and vulnerabilities of being a patient; (6) the impact of the valuable small things that carers did and (7) the impact of being a nurse-patient on their future practice.ConclusionWhile some aspects of nurse-patients' experiences are common to non-healthcare professional-patients, this review highlights there are unique challenges when nurses become patients themselves. Future research should focus on exploring nurses' experience of caring for other healthcare professional-patients and strive to better understand how to meet nurses' unique needs when they become patients themselves.ImpactThis review advances knowledge on an under-explored topic, highlighting the unique and challenging experience when nurses become patients in a hospital setting. Nurses should be aware of the unique needs of nurse-patients to provide person-centred quality care.Patient or Public ContributionThere was no direct patient or public contribution to this scoping review, although one of the authors did have experience as a nurse-patient in the last 3 years.