Perceived Stress, Its Stressors and Coping Mechanism Among Nursing Students in Clinical Practice During COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Introduction: Being stressed-out and overwhelmed during the period of nursing training is the frequent complaint by nursing students due to clinical training that are very stressful. Moreover, with the COVID-19 pandemic that just happened in 2020, modification of lifestyle during the lockdown leads to psychological distress and stress especially among undergraduate nursing students. Objectives: This study aims to assess the perceived stress and coping mechanism among nursing students in clinical practice during COVID-19 pandemic.Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted among nursing students from IIUM Kuantan using online surveys. Data was interpreted in descriptive and inferential analysis using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. Results: Among 128 participants, the students perceived high stress levels (M = 2.06, SD = 0.66). The most common types of stressors are stress from assignments and workload (M = 2.72, SD = 0.82). Meanwhile, the most common type of coping mechanism applied by nursing students is transference (M = 2.57, SD = 0.75), while the least frequently applied by the students is avoidance (M = 1.65, SD = 0.77). The association between demographic profile such as hours of sleep and the worry of being infected with COVID-19 were significant with perceived stress levels, while being quarantined due to suspected infection or infected by COVID-19 and hours of sleep were statistically significant with coping mechanism. Furthermore, there was a positive significant association between total perceived stress and coping mechanism using the Spearman correlation. Conclusion: This study may help in planning to overcome the high stress problems among nursing students through nursing education, nursing practice and nursing research.