Critical Care Nursing and Pandemic Outbreaks

Critical care nurses play important roles in the secondary level management and prevention of
communicable disease during a pandemic. These roles include participating in the pandemic planning
response, efficiently managing limited resources, instituting infection control and providing safe and
effective care. Nurses face many challenges in adequately performing their roles given the complexity
of a pandemic. Therefore, nurses must possess the relevant skills and knowledge to competently
execute their tasks. This chapter focuses on the factors determining work efficiency of critical care
nurses, which needs to be addressed in a pandemic outbreak. Different problems and strategies have
been highlighted in past and current pandemic. The factors explained can play a significant role in
maintaining work integrity of a health care system. In conclusion critical care nurses need specialised
pandemic response education to meet the challenges of managing and preventing disease outbreaks.
Hospital planners and educators will benefit from improving institutional pandemic plans to build staff
capacity through education and training. However, there is still a need for developing evidence-based
curriculum for nursing pandemic preparedness.