Joslyn Haggard, Eleanor Mann School of Nursing
Author: Mary Haggard | Major: Nursing
Summary/Bio: As a university student during a global pandemic, I experienced academia in an entirely new platform accompanied by social isolation and increased levels of stress. I am a Nursing major and Spanish minor who would like to work in the cardiovascular ICU or emergency department of a pediatric hospital. With these goals in mind, the pressure remained high for good grades and a well-rounded resume while clinical opportunities diminished, and general anxiety skyrocketed. When developing an undergraduate honors thesis topic, I decided I wanted to know if my peers were experiencing similar feelings. With the assistance of my honors mentor, Kelsey Gilmet from the Eleanor Mann School of Nursing, I distributed a survey to help answer this question in the Fall of 2020. What started as a simple curiosity has developed into a study that has the potential to highlight the needs of nursing students and contribute to resources available for them.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we, as college students, experienced abrupt change including stay-at-home orders and social distancing requirements. These changes altered the way we socialized and the way we learned. We experienced a switch to remote delivery for academics and loss of hands-on clinical opportunities. These changes occurred in addition to the increased anxiety, loneliness, fatigue, lack of motivation, and sadness as manifestations of this lockdown. Nursing students, in particular, were subject to a publicized depiction of the fatigue and taxing work of nurses with their chosen profession placed in the spotlight.
Having experienced this COVID-19 pandemic while a nursing student myself, I became curious of the perceptions and behaviors of my peers during this time. Nursing students are a unique population to consider as nurses are expected to serve as an example to their patients of health and wellness. The American Nurses Association (ANA) has identified nurses’ personal health attitudes and behaviors as a priority, seeking to improve the health of this critical healthcare workforce.
With the guidance of my mentor, Kelsey Gilmet, I set out to determine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on nursing students’ health behaviors, feelings of career preparedness and attitude towards nursing as a profession. In the Spring of 2021, I created a survey that intends to have students answer these questions. This survey asks students to think retrospectively about their behaviors and feelings both pre-pandemic and during the lockdown period. Data analysis will directly assess the changes between these two times and look for positive or negative trends. This past Fall, I applied for IRB approval and funding for my research. Following IRB approval, I distributed the survey to nursing students at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. My mentor helped by reaching out to faculty in the nursing school to ask them to distribute the survey to students via email or blackboard.
I suspected that motivation to participate in the survey might be a potential issue. I was able to offer incentive to complete the survey due to grant funding from the honors college. Participants will be entered into a drawing for a chance to win one of five Chick-Fila gift cards. Thanks to the willingness of my peers to participate, I received 129 responses on this survey from students in all five different semesters of nursing school. I look forward to analyzing the data this spring. After data analysis, I will be able to write my report and defend my thesis. I am eager to better understand the impact of this pandemic on nursing students like myself. The insight gained from this research has the potential to contribute to better resources for nursing students on our campus.