Learning Stress as Perceived by Students and Coping Strategies Adopted by Them to Overcome It in Selected Nursing College of Haldwani

Abstract

Stress is a feeling of emotional and physical tension that can occur at any event which makes students feel frustrated, angry, nervous and anxious. Nursing students are always at risk of stress because they are being a part of skill training programme and provide direct care to the patient. Whereas, learning stress is mental distress for students with anticipated disappointment associated with failure to expected academic performance and also ignorance to the possibility of such failure. The present study aimed to compare the learning stress as perceived by Nursing students and coping strategies adopted by them to overcome learning stress in a selected nursing college of Haldwani. Nainital, Uttarakhand. Quantitative research approach with descriptive comparative design was used. The simple random sampling technique was used for selection of 94 BSc Nursing 2nd year students. Data collection questionnaire consisted of demographic variable a structured stress scale developed after focus group interview to assess learning stress, and modified CIS to assess coping strategies adopted by nursing students. The result revealed that maximum (n=36, 76.60%) of nursing students were within the age group of 18-21 year. Maximum (n=40, 81.10%) were female, most of nursing students (n=22, 46.80%) lived in hostel. Overall perceived stress of learning stress among nursing students was at moderate level. Nearly 81.10 percent students in college A fell in moderate level of learning stress whereas, college B students had 93.60 percent moderate level of learning stress. The findings related coping strategies adopted by nursing students of college A and college B were inadequate. Comparing the level of stress between two colleges, the mean and SD value of college A nursing students was 159.04±31.55 and for college B students it was 165.55±26.04, with the mean difference of 6.51 which was statistically not significant at p≤0.005. To conclude, nursing students encounter moderate to high level of learning stress and also adopted different coping strategies. However, management should take measure to overcome academic stress by taking stress manag