Celebrating Nursing Week during the COVID‐19 pandemic: The example of Twitter in Turkey for 2020–2021

Aim To explore how the nursing profession reflected on Twitter in Turkey about the Nursing Week celebration during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Background The COVID‐19 pandemic affected the whole world, made every aspect of life extremely difficult, and required excessive involvement by healthcare professionals—especially nurses. Nurses have played a key role in meeting the care needs of people during this time. Methods A qualitative research design was used for this study. Turkish social media data were analysed via a data crawler on Twitter. Tweets regarding the COVID‐19 pandemic during 12–18 May 2020 and 12–18 May 2021—dates celebrated as Nursing Week in Turkey—and tweets containing at least one of the following relevant hashtags: #nurse, #nursesday, #nursesweek, #nursingweek, #12May, or #12Maynursesday, were considered. Results The hashtag #12May was used the most in both years, and the most tweets were posted with the hashtag #12May (n = 2996) in 2020. Three categories, ‘Being a nurse in the pandemic’, ‘Nursing Week with celebrations’, and ‘Nursing Week with definitions’, were identified through a thematic analysis. The categories included the importance of nursing, respectability, difficult working conditions, insufficiency in the number of nurses, difficulties in social life, etc. Discussion Turkish society posted tweets to celebrate Nursing Week. In addition to the celebration, there were many statements revealing the positive aspects of nurses and the nursing profession, as well as the difficulties nurses faced during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Conclusion Our findings revealed that in the celebrations of Nursing Week in Turkey, the important role of nursing in the health system, difficulties experienced during the COVID‐19 pandemic, and definitions describing the roles of nursing were reflected on Twitter. Implication for nursing and health policies This presents a source for perspective on the opinions reflected on social media about nurses and the nursing profession via Nursing Week celebrations during the pandemic. The findings can guide the development of policies on the rights and social privileges of the nursing profession that need to be improved in exceptional situations like a pandemic.