COVID-19 deaths among nurses: a cross-sectional study

Keles, E; Bektemur, G; Baydili, K N

BACKGROUND: Nurses who are one of the pivotal elements of countries’ strategic responses to COVID-19 are being exposed to COVID-19. AIMS: To investigate the underlying characteristics of nurses who died due to COVID-19. METHODS: On 1 September 2020, a grey literature search was conducted. Data obtained through Medscape, Google, PubMed, government and non-government websites. The search strategy was carried out using variants and combinations of keywords related to ‘nurse’ and ‘COVID-19’ in English. Abstracted data included age, gender, type of nurse, department of nursing, country, date of death and publication characteristics. RESULTS: Out of reported 1518 COVID-19-related nurse deaths, details of age, gender and department of nursing were available for 766 (50%), 945 (62%) and 153 (10%) of nurses, respectively. The median age of the nurses was 56 years. The majority of deaths were reported in the 46- to 65 (32%)-year age range. While the registered nurses had the highest number of deaths according to types of nurses (680/957; 71%), they are mental health nurses (42/153; 28%) in the department of nursing. The countries with the most reported nurse deaths were USA, South Africa, Mexico and Russia. CONCLUSIONS: The predominance of deceased mental health nurses among nursing departments can be examined in future studies. Supportive health policies can be developed to increase the motivation of nurses.