Introduction
The COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the WHO in March 2020. Following its declaration, all the government sectors, including the education sector, were affected and had to change how they ran their daily business. The COVID-19 virus is contagious and can be spread through contact with infected air droplets close contact with infected individuals. Due to the high contagiousness of the virus, the governments instituted several mechanisms to control the virus, including mandatory wearing of protective clothing such as the mask when in public, social distancing limiting public gatherings, and banning international travels into the country. To limit the spread, the government also introduced a lockdown, which aimed at preventing social interactions, which contributed significantly to the spread of the virus (Cengiz et al., 2021). This resulted in people having to work from home, and the students in universities and colleges had to utilize online learning platforms as physical learning was no longer viable. While the online learning platforms effectively prevented the spread of the virus among the students, it led to other challenges that students had to deal with since they could not attend in-person learning. This paper will discuss the difficulties that nursing students encountered due to the COVID-19 pandemic and some of the solutions they adopted to solve the challenges.
Background and scope of the problem
The nursing education programs were abruptly interrupted by the emergence of the COVID-19 virus, and students could no longer attend in-person physical classes as a strategy to limit the spread of the virus and protect them and their families from the infections. However, nursing education requires the student to complete an in-person clinical placement as part of their studies, and with the online learning, it was impossible to complete the clinical placements as required. This created a major concern for us, the students, and the nursing institutions as it interrupted the normal nursing education program, which meant that, as nursing students, we would have to spend a longer period completing the course. The challenge was that it was possible to cover and complete the syllabus with online learning, but the clinical placements and other practical classes would be incomplete. Therefore, it would be impossible for the institutions to assess whether the courses were completed since major parts of the assessment were not completed yet. As a nursing student, a major concern was spending more time in the institution since this could lead to higher financial implications. Some of the students were close to completing their studies, while some of us had few courses remaining to complete the course (Mukasa et al., 2021).
Cancellation of the ongoing clinical placements and extension of our study time created confusion and psychological stress due to the significant impacts these interruptions had on our academic, career, and private life goals. The online classes were also a new practice since we have been used to learning together as a group, and therefore the introduction of online classes where we only met virtually created some form of loneliness since we were not used to them. Since the practice was relatively new, the lack of adequate infrastructures, such as high-speed internet connection, frustrated students during their online class sessions. As the students, we also felt that the instructors could not meet and address all our individual needs since some classes were conducted under limited time and, therefore, impossible to answer everybody’s questions (Dewart et al., 2021). The confusion and uncertainties concerning our education and future academic goals, and social restrictions, created tremendous stress for us, the nursing students, causing us to develop some mental health issues. Some nursing students developed mental health illnesses such as anxiety and depression, which caused most of the students to develop strained relationships with family members and those close to them since everybody was also affected by the pandemic (Mukasa et al., 2021).
To help cope with the students’ experiences, there were several efforts initiated. Some of the educational institutions provided online services where the students could access mental health services; for example, some institutions provided pamphlets, brochures, and other published materials on mental health and how to cope with the different stressful situations, that students would access in case they needed mental health assistance. Some also had professional counselors in place to assist in severe mental challenges. The institutions also tried to restructure their learning schedule to ensure that students complete their courses within time as they had earlier projected or with minimal extension. Much of the efforts were als
Order this paper