The Impact of COVID-19 on Nurse Aide Education Programs

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted various aspects of life. One of its most deleterious effects was on educational programs preparing the health workforce needed to care for patients infected by the virus and other diseases.

Purpose

To examine self-reported difficulties precipitated by and programmatic changes made secondary to the COVID-19 pandemic by nurse aide education programs (NAEPs) in Virginia across four different settings: nursing homes and hospitals, community colleges, high schools, and proprietary programs.

Methods

In this exploratory study, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected through online surveys. The quantitative results were examined by setting and included the frequencies of difficulties faced and changes made. For open-ended responses, inductive thematic analysis was conducted.

Results

Of the 202 programs that participated in the study, 92% reported at least one difficulty, and several NAEPs reported multiple difficulties. The most common reported difficulties were clinical site closures among community college and proprietary NAEPs, transitioning to virtual instruction among high school NAEPs, and social distancing in skills laboratories among hospital and nursing home NAEPs. In response to these COVID-19–induced difficulties, the most-reported changes were clinical training sites among community college and proprietary NAEPs, instructors and clinical training sites among high school NAEPs, and program length and primary instructor among NAEPs in nursing homes and hospitals. However, only half of the programs that reported difficulties reported making any resultant changes.

Conclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic led to various difficulties for NAEPs, which gives urgency to designing setting-specific regulatory guidance that would help NAEPs overcome such impacts and engender recommendations for NAEPs and researchers. The ability of NAEPs to respond to future nurse aide workforce needs depends on their urgent response.