Stress and coping strategies among nursing students

The present study examines the level of stress and the coping strategies among nursing students. The sample was comprised of 180 nursing students in various hostels selected by a stratified random sampling. A socio - demographic questionnaire was used to identify students for the sample under study. Perceptions of Stressful Scale (PSS) by Cohen, (1983) and Coping Inventory for Stressful Situation (CISS) by Endler and Parker, (1999) were used to assess level of stress and coping strategies among selected nursing students. Descriptive statistics, item-total coefficients of correlation and ANOVA were used to analyze the data. Mean and SD of stress measure for male (M = 19.844, SD = 5.452), for female (M = 21.478, SD = 7.438), and for the whole sample (M = 20.661, SD = 6.555). And, Mean and SD of task-oriented coping for male (M = 51.511, SD = 8.162) for female (M = 49.889, SD =7.646) and for the whole sample (M = 50.700 , SD = 7.928), emotion-oriented coping for male (M = 44.922, SD = 9.043) for female (M = 44.533, SD = 7.333) and for the whole sample (M = 44.728, SD = 8.212) as well as avoidance-oriented coping for male (M = 46.656, SD = 7.961) for female (M = 48.289, SD = 7.235) and for the whole sample (M = 47.472, SD = 7.629) measures of coping strategies. The reliability indices of stress measure for male (SH = 0.769,), for female (SH = 0.870), and for the whole sample (SH = 0.837). And task-oriented coping for male (SH = 0.791) for female (SH = 0.708) and for the whole sample (SH = 0.710), emotion-oriented coping for male (SH = 0.729) for female (SH = 0.894) and for the whole sample (SH = 0.678), as well as avoidance-oriented coping for male (SH = 0.745) for female (SH = 0.603) and for the whole sample (SH = 0.660) measures of coping strategies emerged to be robust, and that the task-oriented coping, emotion-oriented coping and avoidance-oriented coping emerged to be an independent over the levels of analysis (for male, for female and for the whole sample).