STRESS, STRESSORS AND COPING STRATEGIES AMONG UNIVERSITY NURSING STUDENTS

Literature has documented that student nurses undergo stress in their academic and clinical setting. This raises concerns because stress during undergraduate training may result in psychological or emotional impairment during the nurses’ professional life and ultimately affect the quality of patient care. The Objective of the study was to study the prevalence of stress, and the association between sociodemographic factors, stressors and coping strategies with stress. This was a cross-sectional study on 96-year 1-3 nursing students from a government university done between 2015-2018. Bahasa Malaysia translated The General Health Questionnaire, Stressors in Nursing Student Scale Questionnaire and Brief COPE Questionnaire was used in this study. This study had Malay (95.9%) and female (91.7%) dominated population. The prevalence of stress in student nurses was 25%. No association was reported between sociodemographic factors and stress. Among the 4 stressors educational, clinical, confidence and financial, clinical stressor scored the highest mean 6.40 (SD±3.66). Confidence stressor (AOR=1.26 95% CI 1.04-1.53) was the only stressor associated with stress. The top 3 coping strategies practiced by the student nurses were religion (praying), acceptance and planning. Self-blame (AOR 8.18 95% CI 1.86-35.91) was the only coping strategy associated with stress. Stress management programmes, and workshops on stress and coping strategies should be conducted yearly to ensure a well-balanced environment for good learning experiences and prevent stress related health problems and improved academic performance.