Assessing Factors associated with Stress among Nursing Students at Choma College of Nursing in Choma District

Abstract

Stress is a sensation of emotive or physical pressure (MedlinePlus , 2022). Stress can originate from any incident or thought that makes one feel unfulfilled, annoyed, or anxious. Stress is also defined as any type of adjustment that causes physical, emotive, or psychological tension (Scott, 2022).This research assessed the factors associated with stress among nursing students at Choma College of Nursing. The researcher explored, academic factors, personal factors, environmental factors and stress levels. The main objective was to identify risk factors associated with stress among nursing students of Choma College of Nursing. The study espoused a quantitative study approach and the study design engaged was in this study was a cross-sectional study as it is considered the most operative when looking at factors associated with stress among nursing students. Data was collected using a structured survey and a professed stress scale for measuring stress levels for the stress scores was used. From the results obtained 79.6% of the sampled population showed high levels of stress and 20.4% showed moderate levels of stress. Among the sampled no participant showed low levels of stress. The study had more female participants 54.6% than males 45.4%. The findings showed academic factors, examinations to be the most stressful factor among the study participants though the results were statistically insignificant with a p-value 0.949>0.05 which showed that there was no significant difference between the two groups (stress and examinations). Majority of the participants were above 20 years 77.6% and less than or equal to 20 years 22.4%, with mean age 24.32 and standard deviation 4.91622 of which the minimum age was 17 and maximum 40. The study consisted of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd years of which the majority of the students were the 3rd years 50.0%, 2nd year 31.6% and 1st years 18.4%. This study provides some unique evidence that stress at Choma College of Nursing is prominent among students and is mostly as a result of academic factors. Academic factors such as examinations, workload and assignments were reported as the most cause of stress among the students. High levels of stress have been under looked among students because there are no infringements that have been executed to help nursing students deal with stress in their learning environment.