Sources of stress in nursing students: a systematic review of quantitative studies

Abstract

Aim: This study aimed to identify the main sources of stress for students of nursing and the evolution of the stressors when training in nursing competences. Background: Levels of stress are higher for health professionals than for other workers. A higher number of stressors with negative health consequences are present, especially among nursing professionals. Stress is a psychosocial factor that influences the academic performance and well-being of this group. The interest in analysing sources of stress in nursing students is due to the influence that their training period may have on their perceptions of stress on their future work. Methods: We conducted a systematic review of the scientific literature on stressors in nursing students. The search comprised all the articles published at the end of 2010. Results:The most common sources of stress relate to academics (reviews, workload and problems associated with studying, among others). Other sources of stress include clinical sources (such as fear of unknown situations, mistakes with patients or handling of technical equipment). In general, no changes occur at the different years of the student's education. Conclusion:Comparing studies is difficult because of the differences among them (designs, instruments, number of stressors, etc.). However, our revision gives a current state-of-the-art and includes descriptive information that might be very useful for future research. Furthermore, we offer some recommendations for improving the design of curricula taking into account sources of stress.

Association between senior nursing students’ perceived stress and learning environment in clinical practice

“…[1] Although growing literature view nursing clinical practice as a stressful experience that can cause negative consequences on both students' academic performance as well as their well-being. [2][3][4][5] Stress experienced by nursing students has profound effects on educational programs, on nurse employers, and the entire nursing profession. Stress not only jeopardize students' competencies, increase nursing shortage via increasing intention to leave the profession, but also endanger the entire quality of healthcare organizations.…”

Psychological distress in health sciences college students and its relationship with academic engagement

“…The most common sources of this distress are, among others, their workload and problems associated with their studies, fear of unknown situations and difficulties during their clinical practices (6) . In addition, students must embody certain personal factors (assertiveness, being able to say no, confrontation, self-esteem and social relationships) that involve multiple and significant adaptations that they must adequately and immediately make during their training period (7)(8) .…”

“…In a few instances, distress has been evaluated by measuring burnout syndrome (6,15) . Academic engagement is a construct that is considered to be the opposite of burnout syndrome (16) , and examining it can indicate whether academic engagement positively influences the student's psychological distress.…”

Effects of peer mentoring on nursing students’ perceived stress, sense of belonging, self-efficacy and loneliness

“…[17] Pulido-Martos and colleagues (2011) conducted a systematic review of the quantitative literature to reveal sources of nursing student stress. [23] They found that "the most common source[s] of stress relate to academics (reviews, workload and problems associated with studying)" (p. 15). Researchers who explored first year nursing students' sources of stress reported the following categories: "intrapersonal", "interpersonal", "academic", and "environmental" with the most frequently reported being "academic" stress.…”