Prelicensure Nursing Students' COVID-19 Attitude Impact on Nursing Career Decision during Pandemic Threat in Taiwan: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Shu-Chun Lin,Lee-Fen Ni,Shu Hsin Lee,Cheng-Yi Huang,Yu-Ming Wang,Ying-Chen Tseng,Hung-Chang Liao

doi:10.3390/ijerph18063272

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic may cause a nursing shortage. Prelicensure nursing students who are exposed to high-stress COVID-19 events are related to defective career decision-making. This study validated the COVID-19 attitude scale and clarified how their attitudes about COVID-19 affected their behavioral intentions toward career decision-making. We conducted a cross-sectional study and recruited a convenience sample of 362 prelicensure nursing students from Northern and Central Taiwan. Two measurements were applied, including the Nursing Students Career Decision-making instrument and COVID-19 attitude scale. We used AMOS (version 22.0) to perform a confirmatory factor analysis. The Cronbach α of the COVID-19 attitude scale was 0.74 and consisted of four factors. The most positive attitude was the nursing belief factor, and the least positive factor was emotional burden. Prelicensure nursing students’ COVID-19 attitudes were significantly positively associated with their career decision-making attitudes and perceived control (ß = 0.41 and ß = 0.40, respectively; p < 0.001). All the key latent variables explained significantly 23% of the variance in the career decision-making behavioral intentions module. In conclusion, the COVID-19 attitude scale is valid. Although the prelicensure nursing students’ COVID-19 attitudes had no direct effect on career decision-making intentions, they had a direct effect on career decision-making attitudes and the perceived control.

Highlights

This study aimed to develop the COVID-19 attitude scale and understand the attitude, subjective norms and perceived control of career decisionmaking among prelicensure nursing students during the period when COVID-19 was active in Taiwan
The results showed that career decision-making attitudes and perceived control were significantly positively correlated with career decision-making behavioral intentions
The COVID-19 pandemic has not yet ended, and nurses play a crucial role in combating this global crisis

Summary

Introduction

COVID-19 is a novel infectious disease that carries unprecedented, substantial morbidity and mortality rates in the human population [1,2]. At the time of publication, more than 50 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, including over one million deaths, have been reported to the World Health Organization, and the cases increase continually [3]. Providing care to infected patients carries an extensive contact risk because of continued exposure to critically ill patients with apparently high viral shedding levels [4]. Nurses suffer from unprecedented psychological stress and anxiety and endured trauma, causing mental disorders [5,6,7]. The COVID-19 pandemic has placed extraordinary pressure

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