Morale and role strain of undergraduate nursing students in a pediatric clinical setting

Studies have indicated that causes of anxiety, such as stress, satisfaction, and motivation, affect nursing students during their clinical practice. However, psychological issues that induce morale and role strain in nursing students, which lack quantitative measures, have not been studied well enough.

The purpose of this study was to examine the morale and the potential role strains of undergraduate nursing students in pediatric clinical practice and to identify their related factors.

Using qualitative methods, 42 undergraduate nursing students were interviewed twice by the author in a group setting (8-9 persons each time, once at the beginning and again at the end of their pediatric clinical experience), during which they were encouraged to express their perceptions of morale and role strain in a natural classroom setting. Content analysis was employed to analyze the data.

The study found that the morale of nursing students in the pediatric clinic included positive morale aspects such as hope, attainment, love, safety, alertness, happiness, and interest and negative aspects such as anger, fear, depression, stress, helplessness, and irregularity. Factors influencing the morale of nursing students included self-perceived, personal, clinical, and environmental, in particular, and professional in general. Participants experienced lower morale and higher degrees of role strain mainly because the impact of their self-perceived role was derived from job reality and job expectations.

Various clinical settings, individual perceptions and capacities, and conflicts between expectative and ideal roles were found to induce morale reaction and role strain in nursing students. Development of positive morale among nurses can improve nursing care in clinical settings. Therefore, how to enhance morale in nursing students is very important in the professional socialization process through clinical practice experiences.