A Short Form for Measuring Anxiety in Nursing Education

Abstract

Background and purpose:Nursing education lacks an easily accessible, valid, and reliable short instrument to support researchers and instructors in quickly assessing student anxiety. The purpose of this research was to respond to this need by assessing the reliability and validity of a short-form anxiety instrument adapted from psychology which could measure state and trait anxiety.Methods:Using a one-group, repeated measures design, 51 sophomore level undergraduate nursing students had their state and trait anxiety levels measured at three time points over the course of a semester.Results:Results showed that the anxiety instrument was valid and reliable for use in nursing education with Cronbach’s α ranging from .65 to .88.Conclusion:Future nurse researchers and educators should consider using the short-form anxiety instrument when a quick differentiation is needed to measure state and trait anxiety.