Effects of white noise on nursing students’ stress and sleep quality during clinical practice

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to identify nursing students’ stress and sleep quality during clinical practice and to determine effects of white noise on levels of stress and sleep quality. Methods: This pretest-posttest randomized experimental study included a total 44 nursing students (22 for experimental group, 22 for control group). The study was conducted for 2 months. White noise intervention was applied to experimental group; all participants measured levels of stress and sleep quality two times before randomization and at the end of the study. Data was analyzed using SPSS 28.0 program. Results: The mean age of the participants was 22.9±0.4 years, and a majority of them were female (70.%), and junior (97.7%). The mean levels of stress during clinical practice were 2.6±0.6 out of 5. The majority of participants (79.5%) had sleep disturbance; the mean sleep duration and sleep efficiency were 5.8 hours and 90.6%, respectively. There were no significant differences in levels of stress and sleep quality between experimental group and control group after intervention. Conclusion: The participants of the study had relatively lower levels of stress than previous studies, but they had severe sleep disturbances. In this study, there was no significant effects of white noise on sleep quality and stress, but it could be caused by differences in clinical duty, work environment, intervention compliance among students. Further research considering those factors as control variables is recommended.