Qualitative Exploration of the Lived Experiences of Healthcare Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic Delta Surge
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Authors
Cowgill, Shahidrah
Issue Date
2025-12
Type
Dissertation
Language
en
Keywords
Workforce Development Needs & Industry Alignment , Healthcare worker attrition , Moral resilience , COVID-19
Alternative Title
Abstract
This study examined the problem of healthcare worker attrition during the Delta wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Texas. National surveys indicated that 40% of nurses planned to leave their roles within two years of the pandemic’s onset (Abbassi, 2022; LeClaire et al., 2022), a trend reflected in Texas where 44% of Nurse Aides and 34% of Registered Nurses left their positions in 2022 (Texas Center for Nursing Workforce Studies, 2022). The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore the lived experiences of healthcare providers in Texas and the factors contributing to healthcare worker attrition between May 2021 and December 2021. Grounded in Rushton’s (2024) moral resilience framework, this study investigated how healthcare workers experienced distress when confronted with ethical dilemmas, systemic failures, and working conditions that conflicted with their moral and professional values. Ten healthcare workers were recruited through snowball sampling and data were analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s (2022) reflexive thematic analysis, resulting in five themes across three research questions. Findings indicated that during the Delta wave, healthcare workers experienced profound moral distress that weakened moral resilience and eroded trust in the healthcare system. Participants cited ethical conflicts, exhaustion, constant change, and lack of organizational support as key contributors to burnout and decisions to leave their roles for the sake of self-preservation. Many reached a breaking point where continued self-sacrifice became unsustainable, prompting a shift toward personal and family well-being and the pursuit of roles offering a more realistic work-life balance. This study offers insights for healthcare institutions, highlighting the need to rebuild moral resilience at the system, team, and individual levels to help mitigate workforce attrition. Findings can inform the development of targeted interventions, including hospital-based mentorship models, leadership transparency practices, and the integration of validated moral resilience scales for future implementation and research.