Background: Within the surgical specialist care, both elective, acute, and palliative patients are cared for. There is research that describes nurses' experiences of caring for these patients separately. However, there is limited research on nurses' experiences of caring for these groups of patients simultaneously.
Aim: Describe nurses' experiences of caring for elective, acute and palliative patients simultaneously in a surgical ward.
Method: Qualitative interview study with seven nurses. The data was analyzed through qualitativecontent analysis.
Findings: The results revealed two main categories, with three subcategories belonging to each main category. The main category: Patient variations create stimulation and set requirements gives a description of the patients' varied nursing needs, the importance of adaptation and job satisfaction. The main category: The impact of the work environment on care and health, describes the pressured work environment, the need for prioritization and the feeling of inadequacy.
Conclusion: Caring for acute, elective and palliative patients simultaneously is described as varied and instructive. At the same time, it requires adaptation. Furthermore, the high workload creates the need to prioritize, which leads to the suffering of certain parts of the care and patient groups. The results also suggest that it’s particularly difficult to care for palliative patients in a curative ward.