INTRODUCTION:

According to World health organization 2021, the outbreak of novel Corona virus, 2019-nCoV, an infectious respiratory illness which brought serious and immediate significant health concerns around the globe. The outbreak of the disease was declared as Pandemic by World health organization in March 2020¹.

Illness perceptions and coping behaviors related to the COVID-19 pandemic could be important as they may be associated with the increased psychological burden of depression and anxiety that has been reported mainly in health professionals. In addition, specific perceptions and coping strategies may lead to more adaptive health behaviors and rates of compliance with official recommendations, as it was the case in previous viral outbreaks².

Corona virus disease (COVID-19) has had an enormous public health impact. In addition to its serious physical health consequences, Pandemic protocols and lockdown have shows major impacts on the mental health of society. The virus has introduced new stressors (e.g., fears of contracting the virus, concern for loved ones contracting the virus, economic uncertainty, job loss, social distancing) and challenges (e.g., maintaining strong social relationships while social distancing, staying productive while working from home).³

Having limited knowledge with regard to COVID‐19 and being overwhelmed by its coverage in the media can cause anxiety and fear in the community⁴.

Nurses are the backbone of health care systems nursing students are the major support to nursing professionals in the hospital during the pandemic⁵.

The risk of acquiring COVID-19 as a care provider is significant. Nurses are one among the health care team members to be in frontline actively engaged into fight against COVID-19. The unprecedented demand on nursing staff during the pandemic is having a huge impact on their own wellbeing. Across the world there are concerns that nursing Capacity to promise care will be stretched by the increased workload⁶.

Psychological distress and downstream negative academic consequences are prevalent under normal circumstances. Based on insights from research, examining the impact of academic disruptions on students, it is reasonable to venture that students may experience reduced motivation toward studies, increased pressures to learn independently, abandonment of daily routines. Increasing academic stressors in a population with heightened preexisting stress levels and a potentially reduced ability to rely on typical coping strategies, the COVID-19 pandemic has placed an unprecedented mental health burden on students which urgently requires further examination and immediate intervention.Currently published studies are focused on disease prevalence, clinical characteristics, diagnosis, treatment and few studies on providing psychological problems of medical personnel⁷.

This study aims to understand the subjective experiences of nursing students during COVID-19 Pandemic providing fundamental data of the feelings, challenges and coping strategies adopted during this pandemic situation⁸.

PROBLEM STATEMENT:

Explore the feelings of nursing students during Covid-19 pandemic.

OBJECTIVES:

1. To explore the feelings of nursing students during Covid-19 Pandemic.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

In the present study a mixed method approach Quantitative and qualitative approach was applied with Embedded Design to explore the feelings, challenges and coping strategies of nursing students during Covid-19 pandemic. The sample compromised 324 nursing students selected by the Non probability consecutive sampling technique. Data collection was done with the help of demographic variables and open ended questionnaire, semi structured questionnaire the tool is divided in to two sections.

Section A: Demographic data which includes variables such as age, gender, degree programme level etc.

Section B: The open ended questions consist of six questions which were analyzed in qualitative aspects

Institutional Ethical Clearance is obtained from the Institutional Ethical Review Board of selected nursing institute, Consent forms are signed by the participants. The data is collected online through Google forms. Questionnaire is prepared and forwarded to the students along with the informed consent.

RESULTS:

On Exploring the Feelings of Nursing Students During Covid-19 Pandemic

The first objective of this study was to Impact of Covid -19 Pandemic on Nursing students Pandemic through the open ended questions, They were asked to write in the space provided. In this study Fine-grained sentiment analysis was used to explore the answers on open ended questions related to feelings of nursing students during Covid-19 Pandemic.

Fine-grained sentiment analysis and opinion mining works to categorize comments and statements on a scale of opinion polarity. This can be simply positive, negative, or neutral.

The questions given and the majority of participants’ responses are given below in a concised manner:

Q1. Describe your feelings related to your life experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic:

Majority of students used the following words to describe their feelings: depressed, worried, anxious, stressful, terrible fear. Students had concerns related to their health, their family health, their academic stagnation, adapting to online classes and lack of clinical exposure due to coivd 19 lockdown.

2. What did you do to help manage those feelings during the COVID -19 pandemic?

Students adopted various activities and coping strategies to manage their feelings

· Relaxation techniques and yoga

· Regulating the behavior as per the ‘new normal’

· Drawing

· Reading books

· Positive thinking

· Watching mass medias such as television and mobile phones

· Diverting their mind in to constructive & productive things

· Praying, Listening music

· Playing indoor games, craft work

· Engaged with household work

· Simple Exercises

· Stop watching COVID-19 related news

· Preparing new recipes

· Following COVID – 19 preventive guidelines such as washing hands, Social distancing and wearing mask

· Self motivation

3. How did your faith impact your feelings of the experience?

Nursing students expressed their faith and impact towards this COVID-19 pandemic as,

1. By following the necessary guidelines we can overcome this pandemic situation

2. Minority were Anxious, stressful and bad about this situations

3. Good faith is necessary it’s a predominant statement reflected to all

4. Hope that covid cases will decrease and also the vaccine will be available to all soon.

5. Spiritual belief will help to overcome this situation

4. Describe how you adapted to the changes in class and/or clinical/practicum structure?

A variety of student experiences were recorded, as follows:

Positive responses

Negative responses

· Pupils says surprised with all these changes but adapted by nature and time

· Online teaching was good experience. Something new to adapt. Good alternative method.

· Some pupils felt academic learning in home environment is very comfortable

· Very frustrated and surprised

· The online platform is new for students so some of them were frustrated and unable to concentrate well.

· Due to online teaching, the concepts were not understood properly.

· Due to Lack of peer group interaction, the studies were affected.

· Teachers are doing their best but still normal classes are much better

5. How would you describe your life during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Key Words used by Students to describe their life during the COVID – 19 are as follows:

· Stressful life time

· Worried and panic situations

· Frustrated

· Very bad situation

· Never happened before

· Bored and worst time in life

· Dangerous life

· Simply eating in the home

· Online learning

· Challenging life events

· Spending more time with family members

· Economical issues

· Sleepy and disappointment

6. Any additional thoughts (anything and everything) related to COVID- 19 pandemic?

Students described their additional thoughts related to COVID – 19 pandemic situations in the following ways

· Want to Participate in the social and health activities and give message to the society

· Missing social functioning and get-together with friends

· Using precautionary methods to prevent infections

· Its very hard to overcome this situation

· Want to Revert back our normal life

· Missing clinical postings because it gives more knowledge than theories.

· Exam must be cancelled as we don’t feel confident enough o give exams

DISCUSSION:

The present study was taken up for exploring the feelings, challenges faced during COVID-19 pandemic and various coping strategies adopted by the nursing students

The objectives of the study were

To explore the feelings of nursing students during Covid-19 Pandemic

The analysis and interpretation of the observations were done by using descriptive and inferential statistics.

Exploring The Feelings Of Nursing Students During Covid-19 Pandemic

Study findings reveals majority of pupils used the following words to describe their feelings: depressed, worried, anxious, stressful, terrible fear. Students had concerns related to their health, their family health, their academic stagnation, adapting to online classes and lack of clinical exposure due to Coivd 19 lockdown.

Students followed certain divisional methods to manage uneasiness feelings such as

· Relaxation techniques and yoga

· Regulating the behavior as per the ‘new normal’

· Positive thinking

· Watching mass medias such as television and mobile phones

· Diverting their mind in to constructive & productive things

· Prayer, Listening music

· Playing indoor games, craft work

· Engaged with household work

· Exercise

· Following COVID – 19 preventive guidelines such as washing hands, Social distancing and wearing mask

Regarding question on how the students adapted to the changes in class and/or clinical/practicum structure, there were positive as well as negative responses. Positive responses were

· Pupils says surprised with all these changes but adapted by nature and time

· Online teaching was good experience. Something new to adapt. Good alternative method.

· Some pupils felt academic learning in home environment is very comfortable Negative responses were

· Very frustrated, surprised

· This online platform is new for students so some of them were frustrated and unable to concentrate well.

· Due to online teaching, some of the students reported that the concepts were not understood properly.

· Lack of peer group interaction also affected their studies.

· teachers are doing their best but still students feel that normal classes are much better

CONCLUSION:

This study statement reveals to explore the feelings of nursing students during Covid-19 pandemic. Student’s exploration of feeling is a both subjective and objective component. Dynamic in nature. Explore the feelings can promote mental health and assertiveness. This study assessment helps to identify fundamental challenges faced by nursing students. These assessment parameters are guide map for governed planning during this pandemic for all the students’ community.

REFERENCES:

1. Coronavirus. (2020, January 10). Www.Who.Int/Health-Topics/Coronavirus. https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus#tab=tab_1

2. Wikipedia contributors. (2021, February 3). Main Page. Https://En.Wikipedia.Org/Wiki. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

3. Goyal, S. (2020, April 23). Impact of Coronavirus on Education in India. Jagranjosh.Com. https://www.jagranjosh.com/general-knowledge/ impact-of-coronavirus-on-education-in-india-1587642880-1

4. Grubic, N., Badovinac, S., and Johri, A. M. (). Student mental health in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic: A call for further research and immediate solutions. International Journal of Social Psychiatry. 2020; 66(5): 517–518. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020764020925108

5. Jackson, D., Bradbury‐Jones, C., Baptiste, D., Gelling, L., Morin, K., Neville, S., & Smith, G. D. Life in the pandemic: Some reflections on nursing in the context of COVID‐19. Journal of Clinical Nursing. 2020; 29(13–14): 2041–2043. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.15257

6. DePietro, A. (2021, January 07). Here's A Look At The Impact Of Coronavirus (COVID-19) On Colleges And Universities In The U.S. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewdepietro/2020/04/30/impact-coronavirus-covid-19-colleges-universities/#749ae89961a6 7.

7. Mental health and psychosocial considerations during the COVID-19 outbreak. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.who.int/publications-detail-redirect/WHO-2019-nCoV-MentalHealth-2020.1

8. Skapinakis, P., Bellos, S., Oikonomou, A., Dimitriadis, G., Gkikas, P., Perdikari, E., & Mavreas, V. (2020, August 26). Depression and Its Relationship with Coping Strategies and Illness Perceptions during the COVID-19 Lockdown in Greece: A Cross-Sectional Survey of the Population. Retrieved from https://www.hindawi.com/journals/drt/2020/3158954/

Received on 12.07.2023 Modified on 30.07.2023

A and V Pub J. of Nursing and Medical Res. 2023; 2(3):69-72.

DOI: 10.52711/jnmr.2023.18