Nursing Students’ Knowledge, Ethical Sensitivity, And Intention Of Care During The Covid 19 Pandemic In South Korea

Abstract

Background: A pandemic, such as the one caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), can be socially life-threatening. Objective: To identify predictors of intent to provide care for patients with a novel infectious disease (NID) among nursing students. Methods: We used a descriptive survey to examine nursing students’ knowledge regarding NIDs, ethical sensitivity, and intent to provide care for patients with NIDs. We analyzed 177 students from two nursing schools in South Korea. We examined differences in study parameters according to general characteristics via descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and an independent t-test. Through Pearson’s correlation, we scrutinized correlations between the intent to provide care for patients with an NID and other variables. Using hierarchical multiple regression, we investigated predictors of intent to provide care for patients with an NID. Results: Ethical sensitivity was positively correlated with intent to provide care for patients with an NID. The most potent predictor of intent to provide care for patients with an NID was ethical sensitivity, followed by perceived ethical values. Both predictive factors explained 36.5% of the variance of intent to provide care for patients with an NID. Conclusions: Our findings could facilitate the development of intervention programs for nursing students, helping them to cultivate ethical values in providing care for COVID-19 patients. It is expected that the results will serve as a basis for developing an intervention program that can improve nursing students’ ethical attitudes toward nursing patients with COVID-19 infection and increase their intention to care for affected patients.