NURSES’ AWARENESS AND EXPERIENCES DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN DUHOK CITY

Background and aim: Nurses awareness and experiences about covid-19 are essential aspects to facilitate their clinical practice, communicate and understand patients needs. Awareness refers to the consciousness level of nurses that produces appropriate nursing implementation. Whilst experiences helps nurses adapt to work in a critical environment. The aim of the study was to assess nurses awareness and experiences during the covid-19 pandemic. Methods: It is a cross-sectional descriptive study design was conducted among nurses who are working at the teaching hospitals of Duhok city. The current study was carried out for four months, and the period of data collection lasted from 10th of June to 10th of October 2021. The data were taken from the participants by the direct interview method according to the questionnaire structured to the study. Results: The finding refers that there was a significant correlation between the ages of participants with their awareness about covid-19. Also, Nurses awareness was significantly affected by age and educational background. As for experience, no any noticeable effect and nurses stated that lack of staff and the provision of supplies during the covid-19 pandemic. . Conclusion: Nurses awareness and experience are essential at the time of managing covid-19 patients. They were having sufficient awareness level about the manner of infectious outbreak. Their demographic characteristics such as age and educational background also positively affected their awareness which made them devoted to providing nursing care in order to obtain a good recovery and control the pandemic.