Emotional and Behavioral Response and Coping Strategies of Nursing Students During Covid-19 Epidemic: A Longitudinal Study

Introduction: Little is known about changes in levels of psychological and behavior impact and coping strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic among nursing students. This study investigated nursing students’ emotional and behavioral responses and coping strategies against COVID-19. Methods: A university online survey was used to collect demographic information, a history of contact with people who had the COVID-19 for 14 days, emotional and behavioural response scales, and to modify the Brief COPE to assess coping strategies. One-way ANOVAs were used to compare the mean emotional and behavioral responses and coping strategy scores. Results: A total of 396 valid and complete questionnaires were retrieved, with a response rate of 96.59%. The mean ages ranged from 19 to 45 years old (M = 24.14, SD ± 3.68), and the majority were female (n = 245, 61.9%). Nursing students have lower scores of problem-focused copings (M = 1.42, SD ± 0.30), emotional-focused coping (M = 2.00, SD ± 0.26), but higher scores of avoidant coping (M = 2.92, SD ± 0.51). The anxiety and fear were significantly different in relation to age, smoking, and drinking warm water habits, and there was no family history of chronic illness. Problem-focused coping proved to be the influencing factor (R2 = 0.381) for students’ anxiety (β = 0.045, p = 0.004), fear (β = 0.309, p = 0.000), and anger (β =- 0.273, p = 0.000). Conclusion: These results could serve as evidence that hospitals or nursing homes could provide psychological support to students by providing timely psychological assistance, training in coping strategies, and taking a variety of interventions to create an optimistic environment and guarantee personal safety for students.