Nursing students undergo stress throughout the course. They use varous types of coping mechanisms. Please elaborate on these types of coping mechanisms and explain if the methods used are effective or not. Thank you
Nursing students entering the profession in the first year do have a lot of self reported stress and anxiety. If they do not come out of the stress and anxiety with resiliency, soon they may start to follow escapism. They start to use escapism or defense mechanisms consciously or unknowingly. Eg students start lying and rationalize their actions, and also use projective techniques. If they do not get good grades they start blaming the course instructor when they did not study.
You can find in my papers a contribution to the attitudes of nursing students towards mental disorders, where previous familiarity or contact with mental disorders serves as a coping strategy. Ganga Mahat writes in Stress and Coping: Junior Baccalaureate Nursing Students in Clinical Settings by , Nursing Forum, 33, (1), 11–19,1998 that " 107 junior nursing students ...frequently perceived stressors in the clinical setting.... students utilized two problem-focused coping strategies—problem solving and seeking social support coping strategies—more frequently than two emotion-focused coping strategies—tension reduction and avoidance coping."
Thus nursing students use problem solving and seek social support. Social support is one of the most effective coping strategies as you can see from my paper on depression and hysterectomy. Problem solving is also an effective and positive coping strategi. However nursing students have also to cope with moral stress and moral distress. We have many papers on that issue and you find them here on RG.
At present, stresses are widely spread among students in nearly every discipline. There are various pressures which are exerted from different directions. It is difficult to find things moving smoothly all the time. Therefore, the students ought to learn how to cope with stresses & how to overcome their "negative" effects.
There are persons who escape from stresses by doing more work & thus they become "workaholic" but this does not solve the problem. On the other hand, there are persons who cannot tolerate stresses so they think of giving up & thus they become "losers".
A stress will not last long if one gets the work done properly in the right place & at the right time. One of the main causes of stress is delaying the effort for doing a particular work in an ample time. Of course, there will be a huge stress if the student postpones study until the exam arrives.
Stress may come as a result of fear from failure but if one is well-prepared then there will be no place for such fear.
Stress may occur because of the novelty of an experience but the student must learn that every beginning is accompanied by a certain difficulty which will go after some adaptation.
Stresses exist but efficient measures to counter them do also exist.
Thanks to Beatrice, Dr. Nizar and Brenda for all the remarkable information. I would like to know whether stress, when present, if it effects or not the goals or motivation of students.
I think that the magnitude of the stress is important ; if a temporary stress is tolerated & conquered then it will have no effect but if the stresses are continuous & heavy then they will turn into a nightmare with grave consequences on the goals & motivations. After all the students & us are humans & not machines. Patience has limits,indeed.
Nursing students entering the profession in the first year do have a lot of self reported stress and anxiety. If they do not come out of the stress and anxiety with resiliency, soon they may start to follow escapism. They start to use escapism or defense mechanisms consciously or unknowingly. Eg students start lying and rationalize their actions, and also use projective techniques. If they do not get good grades they start blaming the course instructor when they did not study.
The research is fairly old, but it showed that direct coping mechanisms are linked to lower levels of distress and stress, while use of fantasy and hostility were linked with higher levels of distress and stress.
Jones, M. C., & Johnston, D. W. (1997). Distress, stress and coping in first-year student nurses. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 26(3), 475-482.
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