**1. Introduction**

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious respiratory tract infection with common symptoms including high fever, dry cough, and fatigue; it is caused by a newly discovered coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). The novel coronavirus was first detected in Wuhan, China's Hubei province in December 2019 and spread rapidly in China, and then, worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 epidemic a pandemic on March 11, 2020 [1]. A total of 70,829,855 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 1,605,091 deaths had been reported worldwide as of 10:25 AM, December 14, 2020, with cases continuing to increase [2].

The COVID-19 epidemic is unprecedented in modern times and has become a major public health problem, not only for China but worldwide [3–6]. The increasing number of cases posed a major challenge to hospitals treating individuals with

COVID-19 symptoms and has resulted in a serious shortage of medical supplies and health personnel, especially in intensive care units [7–9]. During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers were infected and forced to fight against a deadly virus while lacking personal protective equipment [9–11]. The International Council of Nurses (ICN) reported that approximately 10% of worldwide cases are healthcare workers and that more than 20,000 healthcare workers were infected. It was reported that the epidemic cost the lives of at least 1,500 nurses and many other healthcare workers [12].

This fatal situation has caused all healthcare professionals, especially nurses who work directly with sick or quarantined individuals, to face serious physical and psychological problems. Working with protective equipment that restricts breathing and movement makes it difficult to meet basic physiological needs such as eating, drinking, going to the toilet, and sleeping [13–15]. In addition, conditions such as limited hospital resources, long working hours, physical fatigue, infection risk, lack of protective equipment, disruption of sleep patterns, loneliness, and being separated from their families cause nurses' mental health also to be at risk [4, 8, 16]. All these stressors cause noticeable psychological changes for nurses working closely with patients [6, 8, 15]. It has been reported that nurses experience major mental problems such as primary and secondary traumatic stress, job burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral injury during this process [4, 17–26].

Although it is difficult to provide both safe physical environmental conditions and mental security, having a safe work environment is the right of every health worker. Nevertheless, although physical security measures are prioritized for nurses serving in difficult conditions, mental security measures are either insufficient or ignored completely, despite nurses' mental health being very important for controlling an epidemic [15, 16, 27]. For this reason, conducting appropriate prevention activities and planning prevention strategies for future pandemic situations is important to support nurses psychologically and to protect their mental health. This study discusses the mental problems of nurses caring for COVID-19 patients and psychological empowerment studies for nurses; it will make an important contribution to the health security of nurses.
