Linda Roney, EdD, RN-BC, CPEN, CNE, associate professor of nursing at Fairfield University’s Marion Peckham Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies, assembled a team of researchers to study the professional quality of life of pediatric nurses. The team brought together several Egan School affiliates, including current and former students. Though their research was recently published in the Journal of Pediatric Nursing, it almost never existed. For just as the study was set to launch, the pandemic hit and threatened the entire project.
The study, as initially conceived, was a passion project for Dr. Roney, whose professional interests are caring for injured children and preparing the next generation of nurses. By examining the professional quality of life of pediatric nurses, she sought to better understand how to prepare her students for meaningful careers while also helping nurse leaders better understand how to support their pediatric nurses.
“It is essential that new nurses know what to expect on the job and that they implement a regimen of self-care,” said Roney. “Nurse leaders, in turn, must create environments that encourage nurses to tend to their emotional and physical needs to increase professional satisfaction and decrease burnout.”
Dr. Roney secured funding for the project and was working on approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) when Covid-19 reached the United States. By March 2020, the project was delayed. It would eventually be upended.
The best scholarship is timely and responsive. It is not manufactured in a vacuum but grows from active engagement in the world, addressing complex issues in the lives of people and their communities and wrestling with unresolved questions within the disciplines. As Dr. Roney engaged the world around her during the pandemic — on the front lines with Covid-19 patients and in the virtual classroom with nursing students — she discovered an opportunity to mentor new colleagues and to make sense of the challenging experiences of nurses during the pandemic.
At that moment, Dr. Roney upended her original project, significantly modifying it to include theretofore unexpected clinical variables. Fortunately, those changes did not impact IRB approval, which had since been granted.
The resulting study was the first multivariate analysis that measured professional quality of life against the effects of demographic characteristics and clinical experiences among pediatric nurses during the Covid-19 pandemic.
