The COVID-19 Crisis: Skills That Are Paramount to Build into Nursing Programs for Future Global Health Crisis

Teresa Peiró, Laura Lorente and María Vera
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Teresa Peiró: Departamento de Enfermería, Universidad de Valencia, 46010 Valencia, Spain
Laura Lorente: Institut d’Investigació en Psicologia del RRHH, del Desenvolupament Organitzacional i de la Qualitat de Vida Laboral (IDOCAL), Universidad de Valencia, 46010 Valencia, Spain
María Vera: Departamento de Educación y Psicología Social, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, 41013 Sevilla, Spain

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 18, 1-14

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic started at the end of 2019 and can be considered one of the most difficult health crises of the past century. It has had a devastating effect around the world, not only for public health, but also for the economy, labor market, and other facets of individual and societal life. Health systems have been put under high strain, and health professionals have experienced unusual and stressful work circumstances. With the aim of drawing lessons for nursing education, the present study analyzed, during the weeks of peak infection in Spain, the stress experience and coping strategies of a sample of 403 nurses from the Spanish health system. Specifically, we analyzed how tenure, stress appraisal, problem-focused coping, and support-seeking coping predicted nurses’ awareness of their education needs, both in terms of technical-professional knowledge and skills and transversal skills. Structural equation modeling analysis revealed that more tenure (years of experience) was related to lower stress appraisal (workload, −0.12, p < 0.05; insufficient preparation, −0.33, p < 0.001; and fear of contagion −0.36, p < 0.001) and more problem focused coping (PFC) strategies were related to higher awareness of professional (0.18, p < 0.01) and transversal educational needs (0.17, p < 0.01) while support seeking strategies just related to transversal training needs (0.10, p < 0.05). Moreover, the participants provided valuable input about specific contents to be considered in future nursing education programs. Implications for redesigning the nursing degree curriculum are analyzed in the discussion section.

Keywords: nurse; degree; training; pandemics; occupational stress; coping; transversal competencies; skills (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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