ABSTRACT
Many Italian universities had numerous nursing students attending hospital wards for administrating anti SARS-COV 2/COVID-19 vaccines. The training of nursing students was necessary to facilitate good practices, disseminate knowledge about anti SARS-COV 2/COVID-19 vaccines. On 22 December 2021, the Italian National Institute of Health (NIH) created a course that aimed to promote the anti-SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 vaccination strategy in the country, providing the basic skills, tools and technical-scientific contents necessary to guarantee all phases of the vaccination campaign, including the safe administration of vaccines and counteract vaccination hesitation through the involvement and informed participation of health and social health personnel towards the population. The purpose of this paper was to describe the method used by the Sapienza University of Rome in delivering the Italian NIH course nursing students at Italian universities. The research group in charge of delivering the course decided to use the Google Classroom platform. From the 03/02/2022 to 25/03/2022, 3154 students from 46 Italian universities attended the course. This paper represents a clear advantage in the field of e-learning, not only because it describes an effective method for delivering a course to many students but also because it demonstrates how health professions students can be protected while allowing them to continue or restart internships in health facilities more safely and with more awareness. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Many Italian universities during the COVID-19 pandemic had numerous students attending hospital wards. The training of health care students was necessary to prepare for good practices in implementing knowledge about COVID-19 and minimizing contagion among students who carried out the internship. In February 2020, a course aiming to guide health personnel so that they can appropriately address the health emergency posed by the new coronavirus was created, making use of the scientific evidence currently available as well as official sources of information and updates. The aim of this study was the development and validation of a useful tool to evaluate the progress in knowledge regarding COVID-19 of students in degree courses for the health care professions. The reliability of the test was assessed using Cronbach's alpha (α) coefficient, while the responsiveness of the test between T0 and T1 was measured with a student t test. The standard error of measurement was used to calculate the minimal detectable change of the tool. The test is made up of 31 items with four multiple-choice answers, one of which is correct. Fifteen bachelor's degree courses at the Sapienza University of Rome were enrolled, for a total population of 1,017 students from different course years. The test showed good internal consistency, with Cronbach's α values of 0.82. The item-total analysis also showed good results, with homogeneous α values from 0.80 to 0.82 for each item. The student t test showed a difference of 3.59 between T0 and T1 (p < 0.001). The minimal detectable change was 0.47. The test is a useful tool for assessing progress in skills regarding COVID-19 for students from bachelor's degree courses in the health professions. It allows the improvement and acquisition of skills as well as a qualitative analysis of the organization of internship degree courses.