Predictors of Stress and Coping among Nursing Students in the College of Nursing at University of Hail, Saudi Arabia

Background: Faced with a multiple roles from the demands of classroom and clinical area, nursing students are predisposed to stressful experience. As panacea thereof, an implementation of applicable coping intermediations to assist in the management of stress in nursing students is a pressing need. Methods: This research employed a cross-sectional analytical design using regression analysis in probing the association of the demographic variables affecting the perceived stress and coping among nursing students in the north-western region of Saudi Arabia. There were 200 nursing students (38% response rate) who participated in the study. The researcher used the Perceived Stress Scale by Cohen and COPE inventory by Carver. Results: The data suggests that majority of the respondents (61%; n=200) perceived a moderate amount of stress (20.52+7.59) as nursing students. In response to stress, the Saudi nursing students utilized emotion-focused coping strategy in the context of religious practices (3.53+0.31). Regression analysis, on the association of demographic variables to perceived stress, identified that the female nursing students (60%; n=200) have heightened perception of stress (p=.000; r2=.136; Coefficient=3.633). Meanwhile, in terms of the demographic variables to coping, results revealed that married (74.5%; n=200) students are more likely to cope negatively in response to stress (p=.025; r2=.061; B = -8.324), together with students belonging to the regular program (73.5%; n=200) with poor coping responses as well (p=.015; r2=.061; B = -16.160). Conclusion: Female gender can have an influence with the perceived stress of the nursing students. Moreover, married marital status and regular nursing program may have a high probability of affecting the coping mechanism of the nursing students negatively. To validate the conclusion, other factors such as clinical competence, self-esteem, time management abilities, family finances and quality of student life maybe sources of stress and can be considered in further assessing coping responses to stress in later studies. Further studies are recommended on other branches of education such as engineering, education and arts to evaluate similarity or contrast of results. It is important to explore the effect of stress on students and thoroughly assess their capacity in responding to stress. Stress management activities are a must to help achieve positive coping behaviors among nursing students. Keywords: Coping, Nursing, Nursing Students, Perceived Stress