Anxiety and coping strategies among nursing students during the covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

Anxiety is highly prevalent among nursing students even in normal circumstances. In Israel during the covid-19 pandemic and mandatory lockdown, nursing students encountered a new reality of economic uncertainty, fear of infection, challenges of distance education, lack of personal protection equipment (PPE) at work etc. The objective of this study was to assess levels of anxiety and ways of coping among nursing students in the Ashkelon Academic College, Southern District, Israel. A cross-sectional study was conducted among all 244 students in the nursing department during the third week of a national lockdown. Anxiety level was assessed using the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-Item Scale with a cutoff point of 10 for moderate and of 15 for severe anxiety. Factor analysis was used to identify coping components. The prevalence of moderate and severe anxiety was 42.8% and 13.1% respectively. Gender, lack of PPE, and fear of infection were significantly associated with a higher anxiety score. Stronger resilience and usage of humor were associated with significantly lower anxiety levels, while mental disengagement with higher anxiety levels. The nursing department's staff may contribute in lowering student anxiety by maintaining a stable educational framework, providing high quality distant teaching and encouraging and supporting students through this challenging period.

Personnel Well-Being in the Helsinki University Hospital during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Prospective Cohort Study

“…Studies from China have found that the frontline healthcare personnel, especially the nursing staff, caring for patients with COVID-19 are at risk of anxiety and mental health problems [4,32]. Similar results have been described in studies from Germany [8], Israel [33], Portugal [34], and Turkey [35]. Moreover, it has been identified that the perceived threat of COVID-19 enhances turnover intentions among nurses [36].…”

Social and emotional loneliness among college students during the COVID-19 pandemic: the predictive role of coping behaviours, social support, and personal resilience

“…The scale consisted of 8 items answerable by a 5-point Likert scale ('strongly disagree' as 1 to 'strongly agree' as 5), which was classi ed into four dimensions: humour, consultation and seeking information, spiritual and sources of support, and mental disengagement. The scale had an acceptable validity and an excellent reliability (α = 0.87) based on the previous study (Savitsky et al, 2020), as well as an internal consistency of 0.87 in the present study.…”

“…In a study involving young adolescents, adequate coping skills and resilience were identi ed as protective factors against loneliness and other negative effects of social distancing and lockdown measures during the pandemic (Groarke et al, 2020). In a recent study by Savitsky et al (2020), higher levels of resilience and positive coping skills related to decreased levels of pandemicrelated anxiety among students during the mandatory lockdown.…”

“…Coping Behaviours Questionnaire: To identify the coping abilities of the students, the modi ed version of the Coping Behaviour Questionnaire (COPE) (Carver et al, 1989;Savitsky et al, 2020) was used. The scale consisted of 8 items answerable by a 5-point Likert scale ('strongly disagree' as 1 to 'strongly agree' as 5), which was classi ed into four dimensions: humour, consultation and seeking information, spiritual and sources of support, and mental disengagement.…”

Does Physical Activity Matter for the Mental Health of University Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic?

“…A growing body of literature has recently focused on examining mental health among undergraduates [18,20,21,[24][25][26][27][28][29]. Those studies suggest that university and college students experience higher rates of anxiety than it has been reported in other population groups [18,20,21,24,28]. However, a disparity in the prevalence of mental health disorders was also noted between particular studies, dependent on cross-cultural differences and the measurement methods used to assess anxiety and depression.…”