Nursing students’ perceptions and experiences of e-internships during the COVID-19 pandemic: A phenomenological study

Abstract

Background Clinical internship is an indispensable stage for nursing students to graduate successfully and become qualified nurses. However, COVID-19, a novel coronavirus disease with strong human-to-human transmission, hit China in late 2019 and forced the Chinese government to suspend classes and clinical internships. To cope with this situation, e-internship, which facilitate varied interactions without the need for direct contact, is used as an alternative strategy to help nursing students continue their internships. Objectives To describe the perceptions and experiences of undergraduate nursing students in e-internships during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods A descriptive phenomenological design was adopted. Seventeen undergraduate nursing students in a major teaching hospital in Changsha, China, were recruited into the study. Data were collected through semi-structured, in-depth, face-to-face interviews. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using Colaizzi’s approach. Results Four themes were captured from the data analysis: perceived images of clinical nurses in e-internships, psychological experience, perceived benefits of e-internships, and perceived limitations of e-internships. Conclusions Our findings suggest that e-internship is a suitable method for training and cultivating undergraduate nursing students during a crisis. To enhance the efficiency of e-internships, guidelines and standards should be formulated, and effective measures should be taken to build better e-internship platforms. In the future, we suggest combine on-site internships with e-internships, thereby fully using their advantages, and improve the efficiency of internships as much as possible.