Fear and Anxiety of COVID-19 and Its Relationship with Nurse Caring Behaviors of Nursing Students: A Cross-sectional Study

Introduction: the emergence of covid-19 and its pandemic nature has caused great fear worldwide. the pandemic led to economic, social, and mental health problems. fear and anxiety are some of the main factors affecting the life and mental health of students, which can affect the caring behaviors of nurses. the aim of the present study was to determine the correlation between the fear and anxiety of covid-19 and the nurse caring behaviors of nursing students at college of nursing and midwifery in shiraz. methods: this descriptive-analytical study was conducted on 236 nursing students in 2021 at college of nursing and midwifery in shiraz. the census sampling method was used. data collection was done using internet links through whats app given to the participants. the data collection tool included the fear of covid-19 designed by ahorsu et al. which has 7 items., the covid-19 disease anxiety scale designed by alipour et al. which consists of 18 questions, and the caring behavior inventory (cbi) designed by wolf et al. which has 42 questions. data collection was carried out within 2 months. data analysis was also done in spss v. 21, using descriptive analysis including frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation, and inferential statistics including spearman’s correlation coefficient. results: the highest percentage of students had moderate (30.9%) and high (20.7%) anxiety levels represented by scores 17-29, and 30-54, respectively. 85.2% of the students were not afraid of covid-19. there was no significant correlation between fear of covid-19 disease and care behavior (r=0.3, p=0.644) and anxiety with care behaviors (r=-0.17, p=0.801). conclusion: nursing students experienced moderate and high levels of covid-19 anxiety, while few of them were afraid of covid-19. however, their average caring behavior was desirable. managers and officials of the nursing profession should take measures to manage the nursing students’ anxiety during the epidemic.