Anxiety in Nursing Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis García Rivas, Aroa Martos Cabrera, María Begoña Membrive Jiménez, María José Aguayo Estremera, Raimundo Suleiman Martos, Nora Albendín García, Luis Gómez Urquiza, Jose Luis Anxiety COVID-19 Nursing students Objectives: To analyse the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the development of anxiety in nursing students and the factors involved. Design: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Data source: PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus and Web of Science. Background: Nursing students are at an increased risk of developing mental overload, due to the presence of many sources of stress during their academic training. Therefore, the COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on the mental health of the general population, especially on healthcare workers and consequently on students undertaking placements in healthcare settings. Methods: A systematic review was conducted using PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus and Web of Science databases. A total of 24 articles were included in the review, and 20 articles were selected for the meta-analysis. Results: We found that the anxiety scores of nursing students during the COVID-19 pandemic were slightly higher (50%) than before the pandemic. The most influential risk factors for developing anxiety were academics, age, gender, having children, living in urban areas or with family, having an addiction to social networks, and having a fear of becoming infected with COVID-19. Resilience, spiritual support and feelings of happiness protected students against the risk of developing high levels of anxiety. Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased levels of anxiety in nursing students. Thirty-five percent of the meta-analytically analysed sample had elevated levels of anxiety. 2024-09-17T09:01:22Z 2024-09-17T09:01:22Z 2024-08-08 journal article García-Rivas, A.; Martos-Cabrera, M.B.; Membrive Jiménez, M.J.; Aguayo-Estremera, R.; Suleiman Martos, N.; Albendín-García, L.; Gómez-Urquiza, J.L. Anxiety in Nursing Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Healthcare 2024, 12, 1575. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare12161575 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/94595 10.3390/healthcare12161575 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ open access Atribución 4.0 Internacional MDPI