Caring within a Web of Paradoxes: The Critical Care Nurses’ Experiences of Beneficial and Harmful Effects of Technology on Nursing Care

Introduction: Technology plays a major role in caring for critically ill patients. Its’ use in patient care can improve patient safety, save patients’ lives, facilitate nurses’ work and save time for them and reduce hospital costs. However, along with these benefits, technology can lead to some risks for patient, if the nurse is unaware of the principles of proper technology use. The aim of the present study was to describe the experiences of intensive care nurses regarding beneficial and harmful effects of technology on nursing care.

Method: In a qualitative descriptive study, semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with 9 intensive care nurses in south east of Iran during 2015. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

Findings: Two themes emerged from analyzing data included: “support”, and “adversity”. These two themes had seven categories. The theme of “support” is composed of saving nurses’ time, improving decision making and saving patients’ lives, while “adversity” is consisted of 4 categories: patients’ hardship, nurses’ distress, dependency and emerging challenges.

Conclusion: Although technology was facilitative and supportive, but effective application of technology in patient care needs some infrastructures such as proper education of newcomer nurses for working in a technological environment, organizing continuous education programs about working with new advanced machines for those who are working in such environments, and organizational and managerial supports for nurses working in technological environments.