*2.1. COREQ Checklist*

Methodological data were presented in this section using the consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ) checklist for qualitative research to ensure explicit and comprehensive reporting. The COREQ checklist is a 32-item checklist for interviews to ensure rigor in reporting in qualitative studies [14].

## *2.2. Participants*

Once university institutional review board approval was received, recruitment of novice nurses was conducted in Phoenix, Arizona, a large southwestern city and the fifthmost populous city in the United States. Purposive sampling was employed to recruit novice nurses with invitations via email listserv of one university's accelerated nursing program alumni, and social media posts on a page maintained by those nursing alumni. Participants were invited to respond with their interest via email, call, or text. Participants were recruited to represent a broad sampling of specialties (e.g., medical/surgical intensive care, labor and delivery, inpatient psychiatry). Care was also taken to include participants working in various acute care settings throughout the city with or without direct contact with COVID patients as part of their daily work assignment.

Participants were novice nurses with two years or less experience working full-time in any acute care setting that cared for patients with COVID-19. Six different acute care facilities were represented. Ten nurses worked with COVID patients or patients under investigation (PUIs), and three worked on non-COVID units, with one of these three asked to cross-train to work in a COVID unit. Nurses were graduates of Creighton University College of Nursing's one-year accelerated program who had already completed another Baccalaureate Degree in an unrelated field. Consequently, students were older than traditional nursing students. The program is based in Phoenix, Arizona, and participants

graduated with Bachelor of Nursing Science degrees. Specialties represented in the sample included: neurological intensive care unit-turned-COVID unit, emergency, telemetry, medical/surgical, labor and delivery, adolescent psychiatry, neonatal intensive care, trauma step-down, medical oncology, observation, and float pool. The sample included 13 nurses, of which three were male and 10 were female. Two additional participants expressed interest but did not respond to a follow-up inquiry to schedule an interview. All who responded and scheduled were interviewed. The average age of participants was 29 years with a range of 24–41 years. The average time since graduation from nursing school was 13 months, with an average time working of 11 months (range: 6–18 months) (see Table 1).



#### *2.3. Interview Procedures*

All interviews were conducted by the principal investigator (PI) who is a PhD student at the University of Missouri and an Instructor in the College of Nursing at Creighton University. The PI is also employed as a nurse practitioner on the acute pain service at a large tertiary care facility in Phoenix, AZ. All participants were former students of the PI and one of the co-authors. Though the PI was working at the hospital during the pandemic, she did not provide regular or significant direct patient care to COVID patients. Care was taken to bracket her personal experiences during data collection to minimize bias. The PI shared with participants that she was interested in capturing their unique and important perspective of working during a pandemic as a new nurse with intent to share findings broadly through scholarly presentation and publication because little research exists to describe this experience.

Individual, private interviews were conducted with face-to-face video teleconference technology to allow for appropriate social distancing. Each interview lasted approximately one hour, extending beyond this timeframe at the discretion of the participant. No repeat interviews were conducted. Interviews were recorded via the teleconference technology along with a digital audio voice recorder with participants' permission. A recording feature of the teleconferencing technology was used to capture verbatim dialogue of interviews. Transcriptions were cross-referenced with the digital recordings for accuracy by the PI. Written field notes were also collected by the PI during the interviews.

A semi-structured interview guide was used to collect demographic information and responses to open-ended questions (see Table 2). Broad questions were asked, such as, "What are your thoughts about working during this pandemic?" and "Has it affected you personally, and if so, how?" Probing follow-up questions were used as appropriate such as, "Tell me more about that." One participant emailed a one-page blog post she authored in advance of her interview that detailed her experience, and offered her permission to include this as an artifact with her interview transcript for analysis. After interviewing 13 participants, no new information emerged, and it was determined that saturation had been reached and data collection was complete. As two methods of recording interviews were used and cross-referenced for accuracy by the PI, transcripts were not returned to participants for correction.


**Table 2.** Semi-Structured Interview Guide.
