From Drama to Transformation as a Person and an Emergency Unit Professional in the Pandemic: A Grounded Theory Approach

Pandemic flows have proven increasingly challenging, signaling the need for more effective global policies that benefit healthcare worker safety.

To understand the health staff's interactional experience in an emergency unit with the COVID-19 pandemic and to develop a theoretical model representative of this experience.

A qualitative research with theoretical saturation through analysis of the 15th non-directive interview, according to Grounded Theory, was developed with physicians, nurses, and nursing technicians in an emergency unit who experienced the pandemic's beginning.

The experience unfolded into subprocesses: Considering oneself, at the beginning of the pandemic, as the leading actor of a drama (A); Looking for strategies to cope with the pandemic (B); Transforming as professional and person (C). From dramatic leading role to professional and personal improvement of healthcare staff in emergency services during COVID-19.

The model indicated a staff waking up to occupational risks with pathogens in the interface with symbols of the devastating and dramatic concreteness of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and insufficient informational, material, human, and psychosocial resources, encouraging them to use standard precautions even after the pandemic.