Opinion Article Impact of Covid-19 on Mental Health of Critical Care Nurses Ocimum Scientifc Publishers . 01 . Submit Manuscript OCIMUM Alduraywish T (2020) Midwifery Pract Nurs Stand 2020(1): 01-03. 10.33513/MPNS/2001-03 Midwifery Practice and Nursing Standards Tamer Alduraywish * Nursing Department, Prince Sultan Military Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Received: 01 June 2020 Accepted: 16 June 2020 Version of Record Online: 23 June 2020 Citation Alduraywish T (2020) Impact of Covid-19 on Mental Health of Critical Care Nurses. Midwifery Pract Nurs Stand 2020(1): 01-03. Correspondence should be addressed to Tamer Alduraywish, Saudi Arabia E-mail: thamer622@yahoo.com Copyright Copyright © 2020 Tamer Alduraywish. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and work is properly cited. Who hasn’t heard about COVID-19? It’s an emerging disease from a Series of Coronaviruses (SARS-COV2) that originated in the city of Wuhan, China in December 2019. COVID-19 is characterized by its rapid spread and it’s already afected almost all countries in the world. Te coronavirus was identifed as a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020. Many countries started implementing strict preventive measures in order to control its spread. Any negligence while handling this pandemic might lead to serious and destructive consequences in the healthcare system, as it already has in some countries. Due to the rapid spread of SARS-COV2 and an increasing number of patients, people have become worried about the availability of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), and other lifesaving equipment, including mechanical ventilators. Healthcare workers are at the highest risk of getting infected by SARS-COV2. Particularly, critical care nurses are facing challenges while providing the necessary care to the most critical cases of COVID-19; they are concerned about their own health and the health of their family members. Tey are afraid of contracting the virus and passing it to their loved ones. Due to these factors, the nurses are working under extremely stressful conditions. Besides, the overload of intensive care units, shortage of nursing staf linked with long working hours, and the defcit of knowledge about the new disease can cause a lot of stress and anxiety to the nurses. Some of the older patients denied lifesaving solutions (such as being connected to mechanical ventilators) and ofered them to the younger patients instead, which led to a great deal of moral distress [1]. What is MORAL DISTRESS? It is intense psychological distress that is characterized by consequences of actions. It is a condition in which a person knows what is right and what they have to do, but they face restrictions in doing so. Moral distress is the biggest challenge faced by the nurses, since their internal confict caused by the factors mentioned above threatens their values and principles. Moreover, moral distress may even force some nurses to quit their job. Attending webinars to enhance their knowledge about COVID-19, ensuring safety and following ofcial guidelines, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines, might help avoiding moral distress [2]. A pandemic has an unprecedented impact on mental health after its demise. Critical care nurses may sufer from short-term and long-term mental health problems, such as sleep disorders, anxiety, Post-Traumatic Stress