Strategies to Reduce Nursing Student Test Anxiety: A Literature Review

Abstract

Nursing students are plagued by test anxiety. Chronic stress, heavy academic workloads, and rigorous progression standards are antecedents of test anxiety in nursing students. The purpose of this article is to identify helpful interventions to decrease test anxiety in prelicensure nursing students. This systematic review was completed using the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis) guidelines. Four electronic databases were searched using the terms nurs*, anxiety, test, NCLEX, strategies, and exam*. Seven articles were identified for inclusion in this review. Following analysis, two categories of test anxiety interventions for nursing students were identified: environmental adjustments and student behavior modifications. Faculty members should consider using the test anxiety reduction interventions described in this article. Priorities for future research include studying the effects of test anxiety reduction interventions on examination grades. [J Nurs Educ. 2017;56(3):145-151.].