Baccalaureate nursing students' perceptions of their stress and coping behaviors

Nursing students encounter stress throughout their academic career that impacts their emotional, physical, and psychological well-being, however, there is limited literature on specific coping behaviors and their effectiveness in managing high stress levels.

The purpose of this research was to identify nursing students perceptions of stress and describe the effective or ineffective self-reported coping behaviors used while in a nursing program.

A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on a population of pre-licensure baccalaureate nursing students (N = 111) at a small university.

Study results indicated that nursing students are moderately stressed with the junior class having the highest stress scores. Narrative responses provide insight into the contributing factors to stress and include themes of academic workload, finances, personal and relationship concerns, and lack of balance. The most used coping behavior was emotion-focused coping. Students reported that distractions were used to some degree of effectiveness but were short-lived.

Stress is evident in nursing students in nursing programs, but a gap exists in identifying the effective behaviors students use to cope with stress. There are opportunities to screen students and provide continual reassessment and support through faculty, peers, and academic and financial resources.