Nursing students' experience of providing frontline COVID-19 support: A qualitative study

Abstract

Understanding the unique experience of nursing students providing frontline support in COVID-19 hospital wards is crucial for the design of strategies to improve crisis management and mitigate future pandemic outbreaks. Limited research concerning this phenomenon has been published. This qualitative study aimed to understand the experience of providing support from COVID-19 frontline nursing students' perspective. Online interviews were conducted with nine nursing students from April to May 2020; interview data were analyzed by content analysis using Burnard's method. Six main categories emerged from the data analysis: “experiencing a rapid transition from student to professional,” “fear and uncertainty of the unknown,” “resilience throughout the crisis,” “sense of belonging to a team,” “shared responsibility,” and “importance of the profession.” Based on these findings, multicomponent strategies that function in parallel with practical contexts should be developed to enable students to diligently adapt their abilities to their new role and cope with health crises