Elena Gurková*, Renáta Zeleníková**, Slávka Mrosková*, Dagmar Magurová*, Lívia Hadašová*
* University of Prešov, Faculty of health care disciplines, Department of Nursing
** University of Ostrava, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Nursing and Midwifery
GURKOVÁ, E. – ZELENÍKOVÁ, R. – MROSKOVÁ, S. – MAGUROVÁ, D. – HADAŠOVÁ, L. Stress and coping behaviours of nursing students in clinical practice. In Ošetrovateľstvo: teória, výskum, vzdelávanie [online], 2017, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 20-27. Available on: https://www.osetrovatelstvo.eu/archiv/2017-rocnik-7/cislo-1/stres-z-klinickej-praxe-a-jeho-zvladanie-u-studentov-osetrovatelstva.
Aim: Nursing undergraduate students often experience high levels of stress and anxiety during clinical training that may inhibit learning, clinical performance and learning outcomes. This paper is a report of a study conducted to investigate the following: degree and types of stressful events perceived by nursing students during the clinical practice; their physio-psychosocial status and the coping strategies that students used to relieve their stress. The subsequent aim was also to investigate the usefulness and implementation of selected instruments in nursing clinical education and to test their psychometric properties.
Methods: We performed cross-sectional research using standard information gathering tools. The subjects were 275 nursing students representative of the first, second and third year undergraduate students from two universities in Slovak and Czech Republic. Three measurements, including Perceived Stress Scale, Physio-Psycho-Social Response Scale, and Coping Behavior Inventory, were tested and used. Psychometric analysis of instruments was performed regarding reliability and factor analysis.
Results: Students perceived clinical stressors more intensely than academic stressors, and showed emotional, social and behavioural symptoms more frequently than physiological symptoms. The lack of professional knowledge and skills were perceived as the main source of stress followed by stress from teachers and nursing staff and to students’ assignment and workload. The results of factor analysis of instruments were in line with the original study. Instruments demonstrated good psychometric properties in terms of their internal consistency and factor structure.
Conclusions: An investigation of the students’ views of their clinical experience during training could help nursing teachers and mentors in the development and planning of an effective teaching, supervisory, support strategies and guidance to relief nursing students´ stress. Tested instruments are valid and reliable tools that can be useful to assess students' perceived stress in higher nursing education.
Keywords: stress, nurse students, clinical teaching/practice, coping strategies
doc. Mgr. Elena Gurková, PhD.
Katedra ošetrovateľstva, FZO PU
Partizánska 1
08001 Prešov
Slovensko
E-mail: elena.gurkova@unipo.sk
Received: 27th March 2017
Accepted: 7th April 2017