Stress, Coping Strategies and Perceived Faculty Support among Nursing Students in Alexandria

Nursing students experience greater stress through their nursing program. This stress is
undoubtedly related to the intensity and complexity of nursing program and its effects on their
health and wellbeing are compounded. High perceived stress levels and lack of effective
coping strategies and faculty support could be a barrier to achieve the challenges of nursing
profession. Objective: Assess baccalaureate nursing students' stress level, coping strategies
and perceived faculty support and identify stress related factors among them. Setting: The
study was carried out at Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University. Subjects: 400
baccalaureate nursing students. Tools: Five 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. The second tool was Student
Nurse Stress Index (SNSI) to assess the nurse students stress levels. The third tool was
Physio- Psycho- Social Response Scale (PPSRS) to describe students' responses to stress
during their nursing program. The fourth tool was The Coping Behavior Inventory (CBI) to
measure the coping strategies used by nursing students during stress exposure. Finally, the
fifth tool was Perceived Faculty Support Scale (PFS) to measure the students' perception of
faculty support in their nursing program. Results: Findings of the present study revealed that
the majority (91.5%) of the students were stressed and the most common coping strategy used
was problem solving (65.3%), while only 3.8% of them perceived low faculty support.
Students' stress was related to many personal and extracurricular factors. Conclusion: The
study concluded that baccalaureate nursing students experience high levels of stress during
their nursing education which affects not only academic performance, but also all aspects of
students' health. Recommendations: There should be a collaborative effort among academic
staff members to remove unnecessary stressors and provide a supportive learning
environment. Regular meeting should be held between students and academic staff members
to discuss the possible stressful situations that might happen.