Nursing Students as Workforce Extenders: An Evidence-Based-Pandemic Education-Innovation

Abstract Background: The recent COVID-19 pandemic severely damaged healthcare systems worldwide, exposing the world’s emergency preparedness and response capacity. Purpose: The purpose of this systematic review was to identify the outcomes of nursing students as workforce extenders in the form of perceived benefits and losses. Methods: A principle researcher conducted an online search on CINAHL, PubMed, Google Scholar, and the Cochrane Library to find the desired studies fulfilling the inclusion criteria, using keywords and MeSH terms. Results: A total of 1160 participants from a 52 studies were reviewed spanned 5 years published from 21 different countries. Most of the included studies suggested that nursing interventions resulted in improved student learning outcomes as knowledge, skills, satisfaction, critical thinking, and self-confidence. Conclusion: The nursing students are workforce extenders is an invaluable education innovation, especially during the times of pandemics when nursing shortage reaches its peak. The main findings of this systematic review focused on improved student learning outcomes as acquiring Knowledge, skill performance, critical thinking, self-confidence, and learners satisfaction,