Prevalence of stress among nursing students: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

OBJECTIVE: Our main purpose is to evaluate the prevalence of stress among nursing students systematically. METHODS: Adhering to the preferred reporting items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses guidelines, we carefully searched ten databases, including PubMed, Cochrane, Web of Science, Scopus, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, EMBASE, CNKI, Wanfang, and China Biomedical Literature Service System, to collect cross-sectional studies on nursing students. Two researchers independently screened the literature, extracted the data, and evaluated the risk of bias in the included studies. RESULTS: From 1397 studies, 27 cross-sectional studies were included, including 7116 subjects. Meta-analysis showed that the prevalence of low-level stress was 0.24% [95% CI (0.24% to 0.25%)], the prevalence of middle level stress was 0.35% [95% CI (0.35% to 0.35%)], and the prevalence of high-level stress was 0.10% [95% CI (0.10% to 0.10%)]. The results of subgroup analysis showed that stress levels are different in different genders, diagnostic criteria for stress, years of publication, and regions. CONCLUSIONS: This review identified the stress levels of nursing interns, which were mainly moderate. This result makes nursing administrators and nursing educators pay more attention to the mental health problems of nursing interns, which can actively take measures to promote the physical and mental health of nursing students, improve the quality of nursing students’ practice, and further promote the development of the nursing profession.