Stress and Coping Strategies among Nursing Students

Abstract

Stress is seen as modem society's illness by professionals from different sectors. It has effects on people's behaviors, communications and efficiency. Stress was described as a relationship between individuals and their environment that is appraised as dangerous and evaluated as beyond their ability to deal with stress (Lazarus, 1966). Selye defined stress as a physiological non-specific reaction to external or internal demands (Selye, 1976).Stewart et al. (1997) suggest that students with an active coping style have lower levels of psychological distress. As a result, it is important that individuals develop different (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Strategies are in order to manage stressful situations (Chew-Graham, Rogers & Yassin, 2003; Fish et al., 1996). In Malaysia, handful studies conducted related to stress and coping styles were focused on stress among nursing students, international school students, school athletes, university students, medical students and among prescience students (Emilia et al., 2007; Jani, 2005; Sherina, 2004; Tharbe, 2006; Uguaket al., 2006).In terms of stress management, Lazarus and Folkman, (1984) defined eight separate coping strategies that they believed individuals employed in stressful situations. Stress could be defined simply as the rate of wear and tear on the body systems caused by life (Stranks, 2005). It occur when a person has difficulty dealing with life situations, problems and goals (Videbeck, 2007). Stress has physical, emotional, and cognitive effects. Although everybody has the capacity to adapt to stress, not everyone responds to similar stressors exactly the same (Timby, 2008). Nursing involves activities and interpersonal relationships that are often stressful. Caring for clients who are experiencing high levels of anxiety can be stress provoking for nurses (White, 2000).Objectives of the study* The first objective aimed to elucidate the psychometric adequacy of the behavioural measures of (a) Perception of Stress Scale (PSS; Cohen et al., 1983), and (b) Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS; Endler & Parker, 1999).* The second objective aimed to elucidate the relationship between the various subscale measures of the coping strategies and stress among nursing students.Hypotheses of the study* It was expected that the behavioural measures (as incorporated in the present study) would find their replicability in the project population,* The hypothesis with regards to the significant independent and interaction effects of 'gender1 (male and female), stress and various faces of coping strategies.This is exploratory analytical survey designed to collect information from nurses on the coping strategies used by them to maintain equilibrium from the stress.MethodParticipantsOne hundred eighty (180) nursing students belonging to the age group of 20 to 25 years served as subjects for the study. The sample was comprised of 180 nursing students in various hostels selected by a stratified random sampling.InstrumentsThe Hindi Adaptation of Perception of Stress Scale: (PSS; Cohen et al., 1983) by Singh and associates (2010), and Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS; Endler & Parker, 1999) by Singh and associates, 2010, were employed for measurement purposes of the theoretical constructs. The CISS consists of 48 items measuring taskoriented, emotional-oriented and avoidance-oriented coping strategies with 16 items in each. The CISS has been successfully employed in a number of representative studies (Cosway et al., 2000; Slesnick et al., 2007).The PSS consists of 10 items. It has 10 items, and reported to show high reliability and validity of the theoretical construct.ProcedureThe Perception of Stress Scale (PSS; Cohen et al., 1983) and Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS; Endler & Parker, 1999) were employed in hostels with two or three subj ects in each room. …