Nursing students in Iran identify the clinical environment stressors

Abstract

Stress at clinical environment is one of the cases that could affect the education quality among nursing students. The study aims to investigate Iranian nursing students' perceptions on the stressors in clinical environment in the South Western part of Iran. A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in 2010 to include 300 nursing students after their completion of second clinical nursing course in a hospital environment. Data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire, with focus on the clinical environment stressors from personal, educational and training viewpoints. Data analysis was performed using SPSS software (IBM Corporation, Armonk, NY, USA) and descriptive statistics tests. Among the various stressors, the highest scores were given to the faculty (71 ± 19.77), followed by the students' personal characteristics (43.15 ± 21.79). Given that faculty-related factors provoked more stress in nursing students, nursing administration should diligently evaluate and improve communication skills among faculty to reduce student stress and enhance learning.

State of Mental Health and Associated Factors in Nursing Students from Southeastern Iran

“…University students report educational-related and general stressors in Iran. (28) This study also found that some demographic and academic factors are related with the mental health of the students, this is why they should be kept in mind by institutions training future nurses.…”

Stress, stressors and related factors in clinical learning of midwifery students in Iran: a cross sectional study

“…Some previous studies reported that other characteristics of instructors have affected on the stress levels of students. In the study by Najafi Dolatabad et al, factors related to instructors showed a stronger relationship with stress compared to the individual characteristics of students [19]. In another study the instructor's supervision style was effective on perceived stress of the students [34].…”

“…However mutual interaction and understanding and shared goals are essential for the positive experience of students in an optimal learning environment [35]. School managers need to assess and enhance the communication skills of midwifery instructors to reduce students' stress [19]. The students reported the most stressors in the "unpleasant feelings" and "humiliating experiences" domains.…”

“…As far as we know, a plethora of studies have been conducted in nursing education but the studies in midwifery education are insufficient [2,4,6,12,[16][17][18][19][20][21]. A few of national studies have investigated midwifery students' perspective on the perceived feed-back in clinical education [22], experiences of learning clinical skills [13] and experience of fear in the clinical environment [8].…”

“…A few of national studies have investigated midwifery students' perspective on the perceived feed-back in clinical education [22], experiences of learning clinical skills [13] and experience of fear in the clinical environment [8]. Although there is a strong focus on interventions to reduce stress of midwifery students, the research show that midwifery students still experience significant stress and anxiety in clinical settings [2,4,6,8,12,13,[16][17][18][19][20][21]. Improving the quality of clinical learning requires the provision of an appropriate learning environment.…”