Perceived stress and social support in undergraduate nursing students' educational experiences
Introduction
Nursing students experience high levels of stress (Gibbons, 2010, Goff, 2011, Moscaritolo, 2009). As senior level traditional nursing students and their faculty, we are aware of the extremely high level of stress students experience and the diversity of responses used to cope with stress. We are concerned about how the stress experience of undergraduates will impact their future careers as nurses. It is imperative that faculty support nursing students to help them develop adaptive coping mechanisms that they can employ in stressful situations. Development of adaptive coping mechanisms by nursing students will result in students who are less likely to use maladaptive strategies such as drinking, separating self from others, ignoring stress, anxiety and depression. Faculty members must be willing to assist future generations of nurses survive the rigors of nursing school and thrive in the face of challenges presented in the nursing profession. This study aimed to identify the stress experience of undergraduate nursing students, the coping mechanisms utilized by these students, and their reliance on various social support systems.
Section snippets
Background
It has long been perceived by nursing faculty and students that nursing students experience higher levels of stress than other college students (Beck and Srivastava, 1991, Goff, 2011). Nursing students believe that they have little free time due to the demands of studying, with assignments for didactic and clinical work. Another factor contributing to high levels of stress is that clinical assignments require nursing students to spend considerable time away from campus and also requires them to
Design
An institutional review board (IRB) approved this mixed method survey research administered in October 2011 to baccalaureate nursing students in both the traditional and the second degree programs at a private university.
Participants
Participants were 107 traditional and second degree undergraduate nursing students enrolled in one of five required nursing courses. One hundred seventy-five students were invited to participate and 107 students completed the survey (61.1% response rate). Participants included
Reaction to Stress
The students surveyed were asked to select all feelings that they experienced in stressful situations, including fear, anxiety, worry, anger, guilt, grief, or depression. The most commonly selected feelings were anxiety, worry and anger. In addition to the top three, fear and depression were frequently selected (Table 1).
Of the respondents, 95.7% (n = 102) reported feeling anxiety in stressful situations. In addition, worry ranked extremely high for many respondents, with 87.8% (n = 94) of students
Qualitative Findings
Survey participants were asked to respond with a short answer to the following prompt: “please describe the most stressful clinical experience you have had to date.” This question generated responses from 27 second degree students and 35 traditional students, 62 responses in total, 57.9% of the participants. The answers were coded for common phrases and overarching themes were identified. Overall, students identified feelings consistent with rejection and inadequacy. However, when asked to
Discussion
The rates of anxiety, worry and depression students experienced were indicative of an extremely high burden of stress in all participants. Traditional students and second degree students experienced similar reactions to stress, but utilized different coping mechanisms. Stress level findings are inconsistent with the results of Goff (2011), which found that second degree students have greater stress than traditional students yet they have higher levels of learned resourcefulness which can
Conclusions and Recommendations
Nursing students experience high levels of stress due to the rigorous academic and emotional demands placed on them when they begin to take responsibility for patient care. That stress impacts the student experiences while they are in school and may later impact their lives and journeys as professional nurses. Gibbons, Dempster and Moutray concluded that the well being of nursing students “has a direct bearing on their fitness to practice and on patient safety” (2010, p. 630).
Faculty can
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