Identifying the Stressors of Undergraduate Nursing Students: A Qualitative Description

Nursing school is very stressful. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to identify stressors and coping strategies among undergraduate nursing students during the first two semesters of clinical course work. One hundred and nineteen baccalaureate nursing students were invited to participate via an email invitation; 56 students currently enrolled in Adult Health I and Adult Health II accepted the invitation and completed the survey. Participants were asked a total of six questions using the online survey tool, Survey Monkey. The questions included: 1) Demographic Data: Age, marital status, number of children the participants have, and the average number of hours worked per week, 2) “Prior to beginning nursing school, would you rate yourself as a person who was: minimally stressed, moderately stressed, or severely stressed?”, 3) “Can you tell me what your biggest stressors in the nursing program are right now?”, 4) “Can you describe your reaction to the previous mentioned stressors?”, 5) “Rate your current level of stress, 0 being none to 3 being severely stressed.”, and 6) “Tell me what you do to control your stress/find relief.” Participant responses identified five common themes of stressors, five common themes of stress responses and three general coping strategies. This data may be used by nursing faculty to develop an intervention that may help alleviate the impact of stress and thus improve the retention rate of students accepted into the Baccalaureate Nursing Program