Managing Shifting Visitor Restrictions in Hospitals during the COVID-19 Pandemic from National Authority Level to Charge Nurses’ Practice: A Descriptive Study

Table 5

Summary of findings from open-ended question 3.

Open-ended question 3: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Category	Illustrative analytic points
Delays in the information flow	(i) Information from the hospital’s administrators should be clear and concrete, directing fast production of ward-based guidelines
	(ii) Although charge nurses learned to live with delays in the information flow, it caused anxiety among patients, relatives, and staff, with the latter often having to cope with disturbances that might have been avoided
Upsides and downsides to the absence of relatives	(i) When relatives were not allowed access to the wards, they did not interfere with staff in the timing of their professional work
	(ii) Relatives’ absence left the ward environment more tranquil for both patients and staff, which was described as a relief
	(iii) Relatives’ absence allowed the patients to rest and recover more
	(iv) Normally, relatives represent a valuable supplementary resource in everyday nurse-patient collaborations, as many things are not possible if the relatives cannot participate
	(v) When adhering strictly to the restrictions, it was difficult for staff to be confronted with the sadness and powerlessness of patients and relatives
The continued managing of social distance requirements	(i) Even when restrictions were loosened, the requirements regarding social distancing still applied, challenging the arrangement of the physical surroundings of the wards