Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in COVID-19 Surviving Nurses: A Threat to Medical Systems and Quality of Care

The COVID- 19 pandemic has created many challenges for health care sector around the world. One of these challenges is the increasing need for health care workers, especially nurses. According to the International Nursing Council (ICN) about 6% of COVID-19 cases were among health care workers (range 0 to 18%). Because most nursing activities require direct contact with patients, nurses are more vulnerable to Infection with COVID-19. Complaints of chronic fatigue have been common among survivors of SARS and Middle East respiratory syndrome–related Coronavirus (MERS). Fatigue is a mental feeling of weakness, lack of energy and exhaustion. Chronic fatigue usually lasts more than 6 months and does not decrease with rest and can lead to decreased productivity, increase absence from work, quit the job or dismissal by employers due to unwillingness to care for patients with COVID-19 and reduce the quality of care. During the outbreaks, increasing in demand and decreasing in the labor force following the possible illness or leaving the job also the prolongation of the pandemic outbreak process make the shortage of nurses more critical. Therefore, in the first stage, in order to maintain the safety of the existing nursing staff, special protocols should be considered to reduce the risk of infection of nurses. Finally, more research should be done to identify chronic fatigue syndrome cause and mechanisms and its possible effects on the quality of personal and professional life of nurses.