Abstract:
In the global crisis of COVID-19 pandemic and the unparalleled health
emergency, nurses are the largest healthcare professional group providing frontline care in
hospitals as well as other areas such as quarantine and isolation facilities. Additionally,
due to the nurses’ vital role in the care and management of the COVID‑19 patients
it is important that lifesaving information is delivered to them as well as other health
professionals. Hence, School of Nursing (SN), Maldives National University (MNU)
developed a short online learning course on nursing care of COVID‑19 patients as per
the request of the Ministry of Health (MoH), Maldives. The aim of the research was
to evaluate the online learning package developed in the Maldivian context for nurses
with little or no previous knowledge and skills in the care of COVID‑19 patients. A cross
sectional online questionnaire survey was used to collect data and an exploratory analysis
was conducted. The quantitative findings showed that majority of nurses found the
learning package more than satisfactory in each aspect evaluated. The overall consensus
of the qualitative findings were the participants found learning online very helpful and
informative. Therefore, the findings of this study can be considered as a useful baseline
for developing short term online courses to address learning needs in emergency situations
such as pandemics.
