Perceived Stress and its Association with Selected Factors among Nursing Students in a Baccalaureate Programme

Currently society is experiencing a severe nursing shortage. This shortage is projected to worsen in the next decade and could seriously affect the nation's health care. It is imperative that the nursing profession is able to recruit and retain qualified nurses. This must begin with the educational process and college of nursing must recruit the graduate students of high quality that are ready to meet the challenges and demand of the profession. High perceived stress level and lack of effective coping skill could present a barrier to this goal. Descriptive survey approach and cross-sectional design was undertaken for the above study. The study was conducted in selected nursing college of Bhubaneswar. A modified structured Nurses stress rating scale was prepared for data collection. The sample selected for the study were 100 B.sc nursing students, among them 50 students were junior B.sc nursing students and 50 students were senior B.sc nursing students who met the inclusion criteria using simple random sampling technique. The collected data were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics.

The study findings demonstrated that among five areas of perceived stress the highly rated perceived stressful areas were physical stress having rank 1^st and Spiritual stress having rank 2^nd, psychological stress having rank 3^rd, economical stress in rank 4^th and sociocultural stress in rank 5^th. It was also observed that there is a significant association between the intensity of perceived stressors and sex of the nursing students at (chi square (2) = 3.841, P<0.05). The research hypothesis was formulated after analysis. The findings of the study may help to recognize the perceived stressors and their association with other factors. Accordingly plan the activities to reduce stress in nursing students.