Nursing students, who need to reflect on self, secure their identity, and be prepared as would-be nurses, can make a good use of post-traumatic growth (PTG) that can function as a catalyst for positive change even amidst this COVID-19 crisis. Emotional regulation strategies in traumatic events are key factors for successful growth, resilience is positively associated with PTG, and distress disclosure is an important factor for stress reduction. In this context, this study is a descriptive research study to identify factors influencing the PTG of nursing students, using emotional regulation, resilience, and distress disclosure as the main variables. Data were collected from 231 junior and senior students of the nursing departments of two universities, and the collected data were analyzed using the t-test, the Mann–Whitney U test, ANOVA, the Scheffé test, Pearson’s correlation coefficients, and stepwise multiple regression in SPSS/WIN 26.0. Analysis of the PTG scores of the nursing students by general characteristics revealed significant differences in PTG according to the transfer status, perceived health status, and levels of satisfaction with major, hybrid-learning class, interpersonal relationship satisfaction, and clinical practice. Factors influencing PTG were identified to be resilience, reappraisal among emotional regulation strategies, satisfaction with clinical practice, and transfer, with the overall explanatory power calculated at 44%. Based on the results of this study, it is necessary to consider resilience and reappraisal, which is a sub-variable of emotional regulation strategies, in order to develop programs designed to promote PTG of nursing students in the future.

Depression may have a negative impact on health behaviors during crisis situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, the present study aimed to investigate the effects of depression felt by nursing students on their infectious disease response. A total of 241 nursing students from two nursing colleges in Chungcheong Province was convenience sampled between 2 and 12 December 2020. The tools used in the study were the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 Korean version, Fear of COVID-19 Scale, COVID-19-related risk perceptions, and COVID-19 behavior changes. The depression group showed higher fear scores and lower behavioral change scores than the non-depression group. Such findings indicated that the depression group did not actively perform COVID-19-related preventive behaviors. With respect to the influencing factors of depression, depression scores were 2.28 times higher among sophomores than seniors; fear scores were 1.09 times higher in the depression group than the non-depression group; and behavioral change scores were 0.87 times lower in the depression group than the non-depression group. Based on the findings in the present study, it is necessary to screen nursing students with depression during disaster crisis situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and provide active psychological support to such students for their mental health care.

The aim of this study was to gain an understanding of the experiences of caring for cohorts of patients isolated due to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) among nurses in locked psychiatric units. A phenomenological approach was used to analyze data collected from 10 nurses with a minimum of one year of experience as a mental health nurse working in locked psychiatric units that were cohort-isolated due to COVID-19. Data collected using semi-structured one-to-one in-depth interviews were analyzed based on steps outlined by Colaizzi. Five themes and thirteen subthemes emerged. The five themes were as follows: “Challenges intensified by the nature of mental disorders”, “Concerns regarding limited mental health care”, “Escalating stress”, “Bolstered identity as a mental health nurse”, “Witnessing changes that have begun”. Environmental and institutional measures need to be implemented to identify the potential phenomena that may affect locked psychiatric units during an infectious disease epidemic and ensure the safety of health care professionals and patients from the infectious disease.