Factors Influencing Preventive Behavior of COVID-19 among Nursing Students in South Korea

We aimed to identify factors influencing the preventive behavior of COVID-19 among nursing students. A survey was conducted through an online questionnaire in December 2021 for students in the department of nursing at a university located in C city. An online questionnaire was distributed to 189 nursing students who voluntarily agreed to participate in the study, and data from 179 of them were used for the final analysis. The research tools used were COVID-19 stress scale for Korean people, COVID-19 risk-perception scale, self-efficacy scale, and COVID-19 prevention behavior scale. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, t-test, analysis of variance, Mann–Whitney and Kruskal–Wallis test, as well as Spearman correlation coefficient and multiple linear regression with SPSS 23.0 program. Factors significantly influencing the preventive behavior of COVID-19 were self-efficacy (β = 0.53, p < 0.001) and COVID-19 stress (β = 0.25, p = 0.001). The explanatory power of related variables was 45.0%. We found that self-efficacy and COVID-19 stress had a significant effect on the preventive behavior of nursing students. Therefore, to promote the preventive behavior of COVID-19, it is necessary to improve the self-efficacy of nursing students and manage COVID-19 stress well.