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Nursing students’ perceptions and experiences of e-internships during the COVID-19 pandemic: A phenomenological study

BACKGROUND: Clinical internship is an indispensable stage for nursing students to graduate successfully and become qualified nurses. However, COVID-19, a novel coronavirus disease with strong human-to-human transmission, hit China in late 2019 and forced the Chinese government to suspend classes and...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Yi, Qi-Feng, Yan, Jin, Hui, Huang, Yang, Yan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9462558/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36083868
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273963
Descripción
Sumario:BACKGROUND: Clinical internship is an indispensable stage for nursing students to graduate successfully and become qualified nurses. However, COVID-19, a novel coronavirus disease with strong human-to-human transmission, hit China in late 2019 and forced the Chinese government to suspend classes and clinical internships. To cope with this situation, e-internship, which facilitate varied interactions without the need for direct contact, is used as an alternative strategy to help nursing students continue their internships. OBJECTIVES: To describe the perceptions and experiences of undergraduate nursing students in e-internships during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: A descriptive phenomenological design was adopted. Seventeen undergraduate nursing students in a major teaching hospital in Changsha, China, were recruited into the study. Data were collected through semi-structured, in-depth, face-to-face interviews. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using Colaizzi’s approach. RESULTS: Four themes were captured from the data analysis: perceived images of clinical nurses in e-internships, psychological experience, perceived benefits of e-internships, and perceived limitations of e-internships. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that e-internship is a suitable method for training and cultivating undergraduate nursing students during a crisis. To enhance the efficiency of e-internships, guidelines and standards should be formulated, and effective measures should be taken to build better e-internship platforms. In the future, we suggest combine on-site internships with e-internships, thereby fully using their advantages, and improve the efficiency of internships as much as possible.