ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Little is known about nursing students' illness beliefs and attitudes towards the involvement of families in nursing care during the COVID-19 epidemic. Focusing on family nursing throughout an undergraduate nursing education is not only appropriate or critical but also essential for advancing family nursing practice. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the differences in undergraduate and graduate nursing students' perceptions of illness beliefs and their family nursing practice skills at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study. SETTINGS: The Faculty of Nursing at the University of Iceland. PARTICIPANTS: Of the nursing and midwifery students, 109 participated in 2020 from one university. METHODS: Data was collected regarding illness beliefs and attitudes towards family involvement in nursing care, through questionnaires via the Red Cap software. RESULTS: The main finding indicated that the graduate students reported more confidence or reassurance regarding their knowledge of the cause of an illness, control, effect, suffering and what is the most and the least helpful in coping with an illness/health disorder when compared to the undergraduate students (t-value = -2.50, p-value = 0.014). Additionally, graduate nursing students also reported higher positive attitudes towards family importance in nursing care than undergraduate students (t-value = -2.16, p-value = 0.033). CONCLUSION: Even though the graduate students reported higher illness beliefs than undergraduate students, the undergraduate students reported a reasonably high or over medium high score, on the illness beliefs scale. University nursing educators need to be aware that nursing students' knowledge, skills and attitudes towards family nursing practice at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic shape clinical competence in family nursing within health care settings.