Background: Traumatic experiences as a part of the work tasks for nurses, who work in the emergency care, can in the long run lead to deteriorating health within the occupational group. In crisis situations, it is important to get support in processing emotions and reactions. Debriefing is a model to give support to personnel who have been exposed to a traumatic incident. 

Aim: The aim was to illuminate how nurses experience debriefing within emergency care. 

Method: A literature review in which qualitative and quantitative articles were analyzed by Fribergs five step model was conducted. Systematic searches were performed in the databasesCinahl and PubMed. Articles about how nurses experience debriefing were included. The study was based on 10 articles.

Results: The results revealed that nurse’s experiences of debriefing were of relational acceptance and understanding through clarifying conversations and an opportunity for reflection and management of work-related stress. They experienced work environment benefits that strengthened team collaboration, the satisfaction of providing safe care and a safer, clearer professional role. At the same time, they felt that there were organizational challenges to be able to carry out debriefing because the time was not always sufficient and that there were insufficient resources to be able to carry this out.

Conclusion: The nurse’s experiences of debriefing were about opportunities, winnings, and challenges. Through opportunities for reflection, nurses experienced that debriefing provided benefits for the working environment and help in managing stress, but lack of time and insufficient resources made debriefing impossible to implement.