Professionalism, care, self-care e COVID-19

The professional behavior of the healthcare professional (professionalism) im-pacts on all other skills, especially on the quality of care, the relationship with the patient and colleagues, and the ability to make decisions. At the heart of profes-sionalism lies caring with empathy and respect for a person who is vulnerable and needy. Only recently does it relate to self-care, as it has been seen that pro-fessional behavior is closely linked to the well-being of the health professional. Professionalism is a competence that is not stable over time. It also depends on the person’s health and the working environment. This study aims to explore the experiences and learning of health professionals during the COVID-19 pandem-ic, which was a very critical and stressful time for health. This research examines the narratives of healthcare professionals, identifying whether aspects related to professionalism, care, and self-care emerge. The epistemological field of reference is Naturalistic Inquiry, which focuses us-ing qualitative methodologies. The research philosophy that inspired the study is the empirical phenomenological one outlined by Mortari (2007, 2023) to de-scribe a phenomenological theory of care professionals’ experience in a difficult period. The tool used is storytelling, focused on open-ended guide questions that aim to ask participants to narrate and describe their experience of the phenome-non investigated. Narratives collected via an online form in three languages (Italian, Spanish, Eng-lish) were analyzed. Five hundred four professionals (mostly doctors and nurs-es, from Italy and Chile) participated. The data analysis has made emerge how the experience during a difficult period, where it is impossible to ensure a caring according to the habits, is characterized by a series of elements that relate to the context, to the working group and patients in a very critical state. The ability to ensure a minimum of comfort and presence to the patient has been experienced as a good cure and antidote to the moral pain experienced by the professional. The relationship becomes care and a source of well-being in the working group. The research offers an advance in the study of the meaning of care and self-care in relation to professionalism in a difficult period. Ensuring good caring makes sense of suffering by supporting the ethical dimension of acting and offering some relief (well-being).