The solitary and uncertain learning process: A qualitative study of nursing students’ experiences in the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic

In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) a global pandemic. The pandemic was a challenge for nursing education globally. Mobilizing nursing students was necessary and influenced practice and nursing students as well. This article will focus on students’ learning experiences during the start of the pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic put the healthcare system under immense pressure to provide effective patient care in safe environments. Information from healthcare institutions worldwide informed of healthcare workers being exposed to the virus during their work, and they are amongst the high-risk group to acquire the infection (Shaukat, Ali, & Razzak, 2020). The due diligence requirements in health legislation necessitated access control and even stopping visits to all public and private health and care institutions (Norwegian Directorate of Health, 2020). Owing to uncertainty, nursing students’ participation in their clinical practice in the health institutions was also stopped. Thus, their education had to be postponed. However, it turned out that the health services needed additional resources and expected the need to increase in the near future. Based on reported needs from the health services, the Norwegian Directorate of Health (2020) and the Ministry of Education and Research (2020) found that there was a need to mobilize healthcare students, including nursing students. The Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research informed all health professional educational institutions that healthcare students were to be regarded as health personnel. Thus, the students could be appointed auxiliary healthcare workers and be part of the health service's emergency preparedness system and cover important emergency functions. Although the students lost the placements they were supposed to fulfil during their practical training, they were able to fulfil their learning objectives in this way instead. Some of the students at our university were hesitant about entering their clinical practice period during the pandemic for different reasons. The extraordinary situation, with a rapidly increasing number of patients, put the students themselves at risk of being exposed to the virus, and their families accordingly. Hence, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on nursing students is profound. The lockdown of society can increase students’ stress levels and influence their economic situation, life situation and family relations (Gallego-Gómez et al., 2020). Concern for society, health, social activity, and personal finances also affect people during a pandemic (Skogstad et al., 2021). A study of nursing students’ mental health describes the four most frequent health problems during a pandemic, with depression as the most prevalent, followed by fear, anxiety, stress, and sleep disturbances (Cygan, Bejster, Tribbia, & Vondracek, 2021). Other studies have highlighted the increase in perceived stress among nursing students as the most evident impact (Aslan & Pekince, 2021; Hamadi et al., 2021). Another study found that although the COVID-19 pandemic represented a variety of challenges for students and faculty over the past year, the students’ learning outcomes remained consistent. Several studies have investigated the pandemic's impact on nursing students’ learning environment, but less is known about how the students experienced the pandemic's initial phase, characterized by uncertainty about the virus and somewhat overwhelming information. In addition, less is known about how they managed the new learning situation, which required a new technological solution for digital communication in order to comply with social distancing rules.

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