Academic Stress and Its Contributing Factors among Faculty Nursing Students in Alexandria

Academic stress is a particularly important issue in education because it has the potential to
decline learning and performance. Nursing education is challenging and places heavy demands on the
students creating high level of stress affecting their health and wellbeing as well as their academic
performance. Objective: Assess faculty nursing students' academic stress level and identify its
contributing factors. Setting: The study was carried out at Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University.
Subjects: Subjects of the study were 600 baccalaureate nursing students. Tools: Two tools were used
for data collection. The first tool was nursing students’ basic data structured interview schedule to
identify data related to students’ personal and socio-demographic characteristics in addition to their
academic performance data. The second tool was Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) to assess the nurse
students' academic stress levels. Results: Findings of the present study revealed that more than three
quarters (79.7%) of the students had high academic stress which is mainly related to patients' care,
assignments and work load. The academic stress was significantly correlated with the students’
sociodemographic characteristics such as age, sex, residence, social level as well as academic
performance and regular attendance. Conclusion: The study concluded that baccalaureate nursing
students experience high levels of academic stress during their nursing education which reflected on
their performance. Recommendations: Stress management and healthy coping skills as well as life
style modifications are required to empower nursing students to control their academic stress and
stressors.