Nursing students' clinical placement experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic: A phenomenological study.

AIM: This study explored the clinical placement experiences of nursing students during the Covid-19 pandemic. BACKGROUND: The health emergency caused by Covid-19 required a rapid reorganisation of care settings. This reorganisation entailed revisiting the clinical placements settings and learning programs of Italian nursing faculties. Some Italian universities wanted to seize the health emergency as a learning opportunity enabling the nursing student to acquire additional knowledge and skills. DESIGN: We conducted a descriptive qualitative study employing a phenomenological approach. The study population was second and third-year nursing students. The students did their clinical placement in 5 Northern Italy hospitals, mainly in infectious diseases wards, intensive care and sub-intensive care units, emergency department, short-stay surgical units and internal medicine wards. In these departments, the inpatient wards were entirely converted into Covid-19 units. Ethical approval was obtained from the local ethics committee. METHODS: Semi-structured, open-ended interviews were conducted in March-April 2021 and analysed following a phenomenological approach. RESULTS: Twenty-one nursing students in their 2nd and 3rd academic year participated. Their average age was 24 years. 81% were female and 19% were male. Three main themes were generated: (i) Learning which surpasses technicalities; (ii) Confronting dignity issues; (iii) Feeling treated as an equal in the workspace. Students had to learn how to lower their fear and self-manage the emotional burden to be a caring presence for the patients who were intensely suffering from the disease and isolation. Attending a clinical practice placement in Covid-19 wards led them to focus on human dignity issues: participants realised how dignity was questioned and how they could become patients' advocates. Students also described that they felt part of the team, with their student role almost fading. CONCLUSIONS: This study describes that the most unpredictable public health emergency, such as Covid-19, can provide learning opportunities in the practice environment for nursing students. Students described feeling useful and capitalising on new competencies. Designing educational activities for nursing students concerning pandemic emergencies may be strategic for dealing with similar situations in the future.

The social and professional image of the nurse: results of a survey during the Covid-19 pandemic. / L'immagine sociale e professionale dell'infermiere: risultati di una survey durante la Pandemia Covid-19.

INTRODUCTION: Although nursing today is an intellectual profession to all intents and purposes, thesocial and professional image gap has not yet been bridged. Also, in the rest of the world, the social image of the nurse suffers from some stereotypes, not only perpetuated by a wrong knowledge on the part of the population but also fostered by the mass media (commentary, cinema, television series). OBJECTIVE: To investigate the perception of students at the University of Piemonte Orientale about the nursing profession. METHODS: A survey was conducted using an online questionnaire sent during the period of the health emergency linked to COVID-19 (from 18 August to 15 September 2020). RESULTS: 662 questionnaires were analysed. It was investigated how students describe nurses and whether that description would have been the same even before the COVID-19 health emergency. Furthermore, it was assessed which gender they consider most suited for the profession and whether the mass media has influenced their view of nurses. The students described the nurse with adjectives such as "expert / capable", "courteous / polite" and "welcoming / listening oriented" and stated that they would use the same terms even before the health emergency. The majority of the sample then believed that there is no more suitable gender to fill the role of nurse and that TV series or news reports have positively influenced their perception. However, only a small percentage of the sample would have considered the idea of becoming a nurse. DISCUSSION: A positive view of nurses emerged to overcome gender stereotype and a greater confidence in their technical-professional abilities. The data also highlight that the positive view of the nursing profession is not a consequence of the "publicity" provided by the media during COVID-19 emergency, which represented nurses as "heroes" of the National Health System.