Academic stress and self-esteem among Nursing Students

Abstract

Introduction: Academic stress in nursing students is a common mental distress with respect to some anticipated frustration that is associated with academic failure which may be due to examination pressure, assignment load as well as challenges of clinical practices. And self-esteem reflects a person’s overall subjective emotional evaluation of his or her own worth and is an important predictor of stress coping. Continuous high level of stress may influence learning process and self-esteem as well. The main objective of this study is to assess the academic stress and self-esteem among nursing students.

Methods: A descriptive, cross sectional research design was adopted. Probability simple random sampling technique was used to select the sample which was 118 medical nursing students studying in the Yeti Health Science Academy, Kantimargh, Maharajgunj. Data was collected by using structured questionnaire including Student Academic Stress and Rosenberg self-esteem scale. Data analysis was done by descriptive statistic and inferential statistic with the help of (SPSS) version 20. (9).

Results: Regarding the level of academic stress, about half of the respondents (50.8 %) had moderate academic stress followed by 31.4 % slight stress, 12.7 % high stress and 1.7 % extreme stress. And while assessing level of self-esteem, a majority of the respondents (83.9 %) had high self-esteem and 16.1 % had normal self-esteem.

Conclusion: Based on findings academic stress in nursing students is about half of the Respondents. Therefore, intervention to reduce the academic stress should be carried out by identifying the causes of stress, stress reducing measures, counseling program and by developing a variety of skills to cope with negative aspects of stress so as to produce professionals who are confident, efficient and having clear vision about their future.