Stress and Resilience of Nursing Students in Clinical Training During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Palestinian Perspective

INTRODUCTION: Stress reduces nursing students’ capacity to think critically, impedes decision-making, and eventually lowers academic performance and limits success. The circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak drove students into new virtual learning settings, adding stress to their academic responsibilities. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to assess the perceived stress and resilience among nursing students in clinical training during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHOD: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 315 students studying nursing. Data collection utilized the Perceived Stress Scale and the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale. RESULTS: The analysis revealed that the stress score mean was 75.2 ± 6.6 and the resilience score mean was 26.0 ± 3.4. Also, there was a weak negative association between nursing students’ stress and their resilience (p < 0.05). Additionally, the results indicated statistically significant differences between stress and gender, study year level, and age (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Stress was high and resilience was moderate during the COVID-19 pandemic among nursing students.