Stressors and Coping Strategies during Clinical Practice among Diploma Nursing Students

INTRODUCTION: Consistent with the significant of the stress issue in education, this study aimed to survey type of stressors and identifies the coping strategies used by diploma nursing students during clinical practices. METHODS: A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out at the Kubang Kerian Nursing College, Kelantan which involved 346 respondents using simple random sampling method. The inclusion criteria were year one, two and three of nursing students who have clinical posting and voluntarily joining the study. Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and Brief COPE inventory were utilised in the data collection. Higher mean score indicates higher degree of stress. RESULTS: Clinical assignments and workload were the main stressor (mean = 3.19, SD = 1.09). Religion approach was the most coping strategy applied (mean = 3.30, SD = 0.71). Pearson’s correlation coefficient test found that six domains of stressors during clinical practices (taking care of patients; clinical educators/instructors and ward staff; clinical assignments and workload; peers and nursing students from other college; lack of professional knowledge and skills and clinical environment) were statistically significant correlation with coping strategies, where P-value < 0.05. CONCLUSION: Clinical assignment was the main stressor among nursing students; therefore, successful activities should be promoted to help them in managing clinical assignment and enhancing knowledge in religion.