Nursing students' readiness and coping strategies for the Covid-19 pandemic in Turkey

BACKGROUND: In the COVID-19 pandemic process, nursing students, who are the nurses of the future, have witnessed a different professional experience. PURPOSE: This study was conducted to examine nursing students' readiness and the coping strategies they used during the COVID-19 pandemic process in Turkey. METHODS: This is a descriptive correlational study using descriptive and inferential analysis. 967 nursing students of two public universities completed the online survey. A socio-demographic form and the Coping Strategies used in Crisis Intervention Scale (CSCIS) were used to collect the data. RESULTS: The mean score for crisis coping of the students was 189.53 ± 27.33 (range 48–240). In case of a state of emergency and an acute pandemic, while 44.1% of the students considered their individual resilience sufficient, 33.6% and 34.6% of them considered their ability to solve problems that may arise and their appropriate coping skills against negative effects, respectively, sufficient. The curriculum of undergraduate nursing education was considered sufficient in terms of readiness by 29.7% of the students, crisis intervention by 25.2% of them, and knowledge/skill level by 30.1% of them. CONCLUSIONS: Nursing students can cope with the crisis during the COVID-19 process.