Fundamental drivers of nurses’ experiences of ICU surging during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic

<jats:sec> <jats:title>Purpose of review</jats:title> <jats:p>Nurses working in intensive care units have been heavily impacted by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This review summarizes the current state of the evidence regarding intensive care nurses experience of the pandemic.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Recent findings</jats:title> <jats:p>The pandemic has had an impact on: nursing workload, the organization of nurse staffing, experiences of staff redeployed into ICU, nurses’ perceptions of the safety and quality of patient care, and staff health. In the few comparative studies, mental health was worse for nurses than other healthcare workers in intensive care. Despite some of this evidence being published early in the pandemic, no studies were found to evaluate interventions to improve nurses’ experiences.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Summary implications for practice or research</jats:title> <jats:p>Many of the adverse impacts of the pandemic are interdependent; for example, reducing nurses’ workload is likely to have benefits for mental health indicators.</jats:p> <jats:p>Adverse mental health outcomes are likely to have an impact on future recruitment and retention for intensive care nursing.</jats:p> <jats:p>More studies are needed to understand the longer term impact of the pandemic on intensive care nurses.</jats:p> </jats:sec>