Coping strategy with coronavirus disease-2019 health anxiety in nursing students

BACKGROUND: The high prevalence of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) has a lot of stress on medical students. This study was conducted to investigating the adaptation strategy with COVID-19 health anxiety in nursing students MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study was designed as a cross-sectional study. Participants of the study were 431 students of the Nursing and Midwifery Faculty of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. Inclusion criteria were studying at the time of the outbreak of COVID-19 and willingness to participate in the study. Data collection tools included participated in the study. Data collection tools included a demographic questionnaire, Health Anxiety and Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (Short Form). Reliability of tools was assessed and confirmed with Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Cronbach's alpha coefficient of health anxiety was 0.76 and Cronbach's alpha coefficient of Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations was 0.79. Data were collected between July 2020 and September 2020. Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to examine the relationship between the data. Data were analyzed with SPSS 26. RESULTS: Findings indicated that most of the participants were female, single, 22–28 years old, and undergraduate students. The mean of COVID-19 health anxiety was 5.59 ± 17.04. Results showed that 19.58 ± 5.05 of the participants used avoidance-focused adaptation strategies, 25.12 ± 3.88 problem-focused adaptation strategies, and 19.32 ± 5.13 emotion-focused adaptation strategies. CONCLUSION: The COVID-19 health anxiety was higher in female, young, and married students. The problem-focused adaptation strategy should be further taught so that students can better coping with COVID-19 health anxiety.