2026-04-14T02:06:54Zhttps://recercat.cat/oai/request

oai:recercat.cat:20.500.14342/38312025-05-15T19:20:58Zcom_2072_482405com_2072_183628col_2072_482409

Experiences, emotional responses, and coping skills of nursing students as auxiliary health workers during the peak COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study Roca Llobet, Judith Canet Vélez, Olga Cemeli Sanchez, Tania Lavedán, Ana Masot, Olga Teresa, Botigué Estudiants d'infermeria Pandèmia de COVID-19, 2020- Auxiliars d'infermeria Adaptació (Psicologia) Emocions Estratègia d'afrontament The COVID-19 crisis in Spain has exacerbated the shortage of nursing staff torespond to increasing healthcare demands. For this reason, nursing students were requested tocollaborate voluntarily as auxiliary health staff. This emergency has led to mental health problemsin health professionals, hence the relevance of coping techniques. The objectives of this study wereto explore the experiences and emotional responses of final-year nursing students who volunteeredto carry out healthcare relief tasks during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and to identifythe coping strategies they adopted to deal with this situation. A qualitative study was conductedin the constructivist paradigm. Purposive sampling was used, and twenty-two studentsparticipated in semi-structured interviews, which were then content-analysed. The study isreported using the COREQ checklist. Five themes emerged in the ‘Experiences and emotionalresponse’ dimension (context, patients, emotions and feelings, risk of contagion, and personalsatisfaction), and three themes emerged in the ‘Coping strategies’ dimension strategies in the workenvironment, in daily life and personal life. Although the students expressed negative emotionsdue to the highly complex context and lack of professional experience, they evaluated theexperience positively in terms of learning and usefulness. Most notably, the students employedadaptive coping strategies to deal with the pandemic. 2025-05-15T19:20:58Z 2025-05-15T19:20:58Z 2025-05-15T19:20:58Z 2021-04 info:eu-repo/semantics/article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14342/3831 https://doi.org/10.1111/inm.12858 eng International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 2021, 30: 1080–1092 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess © L'autor/a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International John Wiley & Sons