The COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on nursing students’ performance

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to unexpected changes in nursing students’ education, which constitutes the suspension of face-to-face education and a halt to their professional practice in hospitals. The lockdown came to effect when the pandemic had an escalating effect on nursing students and their studies. This study was conducted to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on nursing students studying at different levels on four campuses in the Southern Region of Saudi Arabia via their perceived stress levels. The research design was carried out using a descriptive approach and a Google documents link was used to collect data. This research took place between April 2020 to September 2021 and consisted of 233 nursing students from different Nursing branches in the area. This study indicated that nursing students had moderate stress levels through the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) measuring scale, with a PSS score of 31.69 ± 6.91. There was a significant difference in age and gender of p <.001 and p <.001, respectively. This study showed that age and gender impacted the stress levels amongst nursing students