STRESS AND PHYSIO-PSYCHO-SOCIAL SYMPTOMS AMONG A PUBLIC UNIVERSITY’SNURSING STUDENTS DURING CLINICAL POSTING

Abstract

Clinical postingis the most important part in nursing education, requiring knowledge, skills, and the right attitude to facilitatethe development to be a professional nurse. However,clinical posting was found to be the most stressfulphase for nursing students throughout their education process in most countries. As nursing students enter the real hospital environment with the lack of knowledge and nursing skills, their health can be affected.The aim of this study is to assess the level of stress and physio-psycho-social symptoms among nursing students in a public university during clinical posting. This cross-sectional study design involved 181 undergraduate nursing students who had completed their clinical posting in a government hospital. The results showed that the nursing students experienced stress most of time especially during their clinical posting.  The most common cause of stress was from the workload and assignment and the most common response to stress was behavioral symptoms. This study revealed that the residence where these students lived had significance with the level of stress during their clinical posting (p=0.01).Detecting early stress events, creating more effective environment and understanding the effectiveness of coping behaviors may help nursing educators reduce the negative effects of stress which will altogether help students handle stress more effectively.