Experiences of vulnerability and uncertainty during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars: Stories of wounded service members and the nurses who cared for them.

BACKGROUND: The findings reported in this paper were derived from a secondary analysis of selected data from a large clinical knowledge study designed to document the experiential learning of military and federal nurses caring for critically wounded service members (WSMs) of their experience of care from point of injury in the combat zone through their rehabilitation.

FINDINGS: This article describes a picture of vulnerability and uncertainty in both WSMs and their nurses throughout the health care continuum. The concepts of vulnerability and uncertainty had distinct meanings for each group. In many cases, nurses who were deployed revealed a dual encounter with the vulnerability of war along with personal uncertainty about themselves and their patients.

DISCUSSION: To support optimized health care of WSMs and the well-being of caregivers, health care professionals and policy makers must understand the effects and dynamics of serving in a warzone.