TITLE:
An Exploratory Study: Reducing Nursing Students Stress Levels Facilitate Perceived Quality of Patient Care
AUTHORS:
Kristiann T. Williams
KEYWORDS:
Nursing Student, Anxiety, Quality of Care Provided
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Nursing,
Vol.4 No.7,
June
20,
2014
ABSTRACT:
The aim of this project was to examine if stress levels in Associate
Degree (AD) nursing students can affect their perceived quality of care
provided to patients. Nursing students experience tremendous amounts of stress
especially during their clinical experience. High levels of stress may affect the
quality of patient care provided. This project implemented a stress reducing
workshop and an instructional deep breathing compact disk (CD) to determine the
effects of this intervention upon the stress levels of nursing students and the
quality of care provided to patients. Nursing students completed a workshop
where recognition of stress producing situations and effective ways to deal
with them were discussed. Each student was provided with a CD containing a ten
minute instructional deep breathing exercise which they were asked to listen to
five times a week for six weeks. Nursing students were asked to complete
Cohen’s Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and the Student Perception of Quality of
Patient Care Provided questionnaire prior to and after the implementation of
the intervention. The results of the two questionnaires were compared to determine
effectiveness of the stress reducing interventions. Using paired t scores,
results demonstrated that students’ stress levels were decreased and student’s
perception of quality of patient care provided improved after the stress
reducing interventions.