Relationship between Perceived Stress, Psychological Wellbeing and Emotional Competence among Baccalaureate Nursing Students: an Egyptian Sample

Nursing education is acknowledged as one of the stressful and emotionally demanding profession. Stress among nursing students is an inevitable issue that might lead to poor psychological wellbeing. Having a good emotional competence helps university nursing students to decrease their stressand enhance their psychological well-being. Aim: this study was aimed to determine the relationship between the perceived stress, psychological wellbeing and emotional competence among baccalaureate nursing students. Design: A descriptive correlational research design was used in this study. Baccalaureate nursing students who were enrolled at Psychiatric Nursing and Mental Health coursewere the study subjects. Their number amounted 135 students. Four tools were used namely; Bio-socio demographic data structured interview schedule, Ryff’s Psychological Wellbeing (RPWB) scale, The Emotional Skills/Competence questionnaire and Perceived Stress Scale (PSS).Results:A positive significant relation between the students’ psychological well-being and their Emotional competence was noted and there was a negative significant correlation between them and students’ perceived stress.It can be concluded that nursing students have high level of stress and their emotional skills/competence in addition to their psychological well-being can help them to decrease their level of stress. Implementation of emotional hygiene program, to teach the nursing students to care for their own emotions and didn’t leave them injured or untreated is recommended. Key words: Stress, Psychological well-being. Emotional competence, Nursing students. DOI: 10.7176/JHMN/68-09 Publication date: November 30th 201