BACKGROUND
Emerging infectious disease disasters receive extensive media coverage and public attention. During health crises such as pandemics, nurse burnout and increased attrition are also at their peak. However, nursing issues related to responding to recurrent emerging infectious disease crises have rarely been studied over time.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to analyze and draw implications from changes in key nursing issues reported by the news media during four emerging infectious disease outbreaks in Korea since 2000.
METHODS
We analyzed news articles that were published during the outbreaks of SARS, influenza A, MERS, and COVID-19. A total of 51,489 news articles were extracted by search for the key words "nursing" or "nurse" in the title or body of the article during the new infectious disease outbreaks. The collected news articles were analyzed for text and structure using a three-step method keyword analysis, latent Dirichlet allocation topic modeling, and keyword network analysis after preprocessing.
RESULTS
The number of topics selected per epidemic period was five each for SARS, influenza A, and MERS, and six for COVID-19. The common themes that emerged across the four epidemics were "Response to Emerging Infectious Diseases in Korea," "Demand for Nurses," "Vulnerability in the Work Environment," and "Roles and Responsibilities of Nurses. Despite the same theme names, the overarching keywords were different for each epidemic.
CONCLUSIONS
Analysis of the identified themes and the associated keyword network revealed that issues related to nurse shortages, working conditions, and poor treatment were not unique to the COVID-19 pandemic, but rather recurring themes from previous epidemics. Our findings can be used to inform strategies to improve the professional role, environment, and treatment of nurses during health crises. Suggestions for future nursing-related policy impact and change research are also provided.