Nursing students on the frontline: Impact and personal and professional gains of joining the health care workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain

Abstract

Background Final-year nursing students in Spain augmented the health care workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic. Purpose To understand the lived experience of nursing students who joined the health care workforce during the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak (March–May 2020). Method Qualitative content analysis of the reflective journals of 40 nursing students in Spain. Findings. The analysis identified four main themes: 1) Willingness to help; 2) Safety and protective measures: Impact and challenges; 3) Overwhelming experience: Becoming aware of the magnitude of the epidemic; and 4) Learning and growth. Discussion The wish to help, the sense of moral duty, and the opportunity to learn buffered the impact of the students' lived experience. Despite the challenges they faced, they saw their experiences as a source of personal and professional growth, and they felt reaffirmed in their choice of career. Promoting opportunities for reflection and implementing adequate support and training strategies is crucial for building a nursing workforce that is capable of responding to future health crises.

Willingness of university nursing students to volunteer during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brunei Darussalam

“…Furthermore, the Ministry of Health could also contribute to increasing the willingness of university nursing students to volunteer during future disasters by providing adequate personal protective equipment, vaccination, and prophylaxis to ease the worries of the volunteers from contracting the virus. Moreover, if personal protective equipment is inadequate, and vaccination and prophylaxis are unavailable yet, the health ministry could provide staff houses for the volunteers to reduce their contacts with their families, reducing the risk of spreading the virus to the families of the volunteers (Astorp et al, 2020;Martin-Delgado et al, 2021).…”

“…This statement is further supported by a cross-sectional study by Yu et al (2020), in which 85.6% of their nursing and medical student participants would gladly volunteer during the COVID-19 outbreak. Similarly, all 40 Spanish nursing students from the Martin-Delgado et al (2021) study stated that they were willing to volunteer during the COVID-19 pandemic. These claims are further evidenced by a study on 711 Denmark medical students, which within two weeks of COVD-19, all master students and 70% of their bachelor students volunteered to work in nine pandemic emergency departments as temporary residents, ventilator therapy assistants, or nursing assistants (Rasmussen et al, 2020).…”

“…Safety -Another important factor influencing nursing students' decision to volunteer is the provision of necessary personal protective equipment (Martin-Delgado et al, 2021). A Canadian study reported that 77.4% of their participants would volunteer if provided protective garments (Yonge et al, 2010).…”

“…65.3% of the sample from Cervera-Gasch et al (2020) study felt like they were unprepared to attend to patients during an outbreak. Similarly, Spanish nursing students also raised doubts about their preparedness to care for patients during the COVID-19 pandemic (Martin-Delgado et al, 2021). Furthermore, a study on medical students in the United States showed that before completing their disaster preparedness elective, 70% of their students felt unprepared to participate in an emergency such as that of an outbreak, as compared to 11% after the elective was completed (O'Byrne et al, 2020).…”

Nursing student experiences in turmoil: A year of the pandemic and social strife during final clinical rotations

“…The semi-structured interviews revealed students' negative emotions, such as fear, anxiety and concern of transmitting the disease to their family. Martin-Delgado et al (2021) analyzed 40 reflective journals that were required for final-year Spanish nursing students when traditional clinical placement was altered, and many of whom joined the healthcare workforce early during the COVID-19 outbreak. Students conveyed a willingness to help out along with a sense of growth and learning, but they also expressed being overwhelmed, fearful, and isolated.…”