| Summary: | 碩士 === 臺北醫學大學 === 醫學人文研究所 === 100 === Background: Nursing students meet stressors both during block (period when they attend
classes) and during practice in the clinical area. However, there are no programs in the
curriculum that are specifically designed to look into the area of stress among nursing students
and how they cope with the stressors they meet in the school of nursing or in the clinical area.
Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the perceptions of nursing students regarding
stress and the ways they are coping with it.
Methods: This study was conducted among nursing students in Southern Africa Nazarene
University in Swaziland using survey questionnaires in February 2012. The SAS software and
paired t-test technique were used to test the level of significance between demographic factors,
ways of coping and perception of stress. A total of 191 questionnaires were analyzed.
Results: The study found that seeking social support was statistically significant between level
one and level three nursing students. Level one students were seeking more social support than
level three students. It found that female students were seeking more social support than the male
students. Female students perceived more stress than the male students. Students who were older
than 28 years perceived less stress than those that were younger.
Escape avoidance and positive reappraisal were statistically significant predictors of stress.
Highly stressed students were those that used more escape avoidance and less positive
reappraisal.
Conclusion: Gender, age, level of study, marital status and having a child influence ways of
coping while only gender and age influence perception of stress among nursing students. Ways
of coping such as seeking social support should be encouraged among nursing students. Also,
nurse educators, clinical supervisors and everyone concerned should help nursing students to use
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less of escape avoidance and more positive reappraisal as a way of coping when dealing with
stressors.
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