Psychosocial stress and coping patterns among students in the faculty of nursing Mansoura University

ABSTRACT

The nursing students are often exposed to stress that can be categorized into academic sources and clinical sources. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the sources of stress, and coping patterns among students in the Faculty of Nursing,. The study was conducted on 320 nursing students, 80 from each grade. Three instruments were used for data collection which includes a self-administered questionnaire sheet that concerned with students' socio-demographic and family characteristics and their perceptions and expectations about nursing profession, scales to assess different sources of academic and clinical stressors and coping strategies scale sheet. Results of the study revealed that the highest percentage of nursing students has reported lack of pleasure time and recreation and evaluation process were commonly types of academic and clinical stressors. Also, the percentage of academic stressors was higher among students who had feeling ashamed compared to peers in other faculties and who perceived the role of mass media as downgrading nursing profession. Clinical stressors were higher among students who had this ashamed feeling. Wishful thinking and helplessness was commonly used emotional-focused coping among the nursing students. Active coping and positive reinterpretation was also commonly used problem-focused coping among the nursing students, Moreover, it was revealed that, a higher percentage of the student who have not emotional-focused coping were ashamed. Furthermore, statistical significant relation was found between problem-focused coping among nursing students and the reasons of parents' reluctance that relevant to the students' perception about nursing career In the light of the study results it was recommended that stress management training should be introduced in the curriculum for students. Academic staff members should be introduced to first year students to assist students in identifying support persons. Counseling services should be offered for students to identify and build up their specific coping strategies