Date
8-24-2023
Department
School of Nursing
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Chair
Martha Baker
Keywords
nursing student, spiritual well-being, spirituality, COVID-19, pandemic, spiritual/moral distress
Disciplines
Nursing
Recommended Citation
Williams-Jones, Pamela, "The Lived Experiences of Nursing Students Spiritual Well-Being during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Phenomenological Research Study" (2023). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 4734.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/4734
Abstract
The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to examine the concept of the spiritual well-being of senior-level nursing students during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research was reinforced by Parse's (1992) human becoming theory which contains the construct of spirituality. Student nurses are “knowing beings" with a sense of purpose, constantly propelling themselves toward possibilities and freely choosing personal meaning in situations in an intersubjective process of relating value priorities. This study will also be reinforced by the conceptual framework of the spiritual framework of coping by Gall et al. (2005). This framework was used to guide the nursing students' understanding of spirituality, health, and coping during the COVID-19 pandemic (Gall et al., 2005). The study was steered by the principal research question: As described by the research participants, what is the lived experience of spiritual well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic? The participants were 13 senior-level nursing students enrolled in a program of study enabling them to sit for the NCLEX examination and were enrolled in nursing clinicals during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study site is situated in the southeastern region of the United States. Data were collected from in-depth interviews that were transcribed, coded, and analyzed for themes. NVivo software assisted with the data organization and analysis to develop five thematic outcomes. The data analysis would reveal that the phenomenon of spiritual well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic was identified by all the study participants.
