The aim of this study was to describe nurses' experiences of their working environment in emergency departments at a general hospital in Manila, Philippines.
The working environment within emergency care is complex and unpredictable and may influence patient safety. Nurses are challenged by increased patient flow, staff shortages and heavy workload.
This study used a qualitative content analysis with an inductive approach based on semi-structured interviews with nine nurses at emergency departments.
One category, barriers to providing a high quality of care, which included two subcategories, two subcategories managing a stressful work environment and teamwork's impact in managing complex caring environment, describe nurses' experiences with their work environment at emergency departments in the Philippines.
Workload manifests through a high patient ratio and patient safety-affected prioritizations of patients, which is why basic nursing is limited. Therefore, improved teamwork built upon person-centered care is needed to increase the high quality of care as well as a healthy working environment.