Stress in nursing students: construction of determining factors

Abstract

Stress has been identified with significant frequency in Nursing students. However, its assessment among them has been a challenge because in Brazilian scientific literature there are few studies that approach it or that use methods that are adequate to the reality of Nursing students. Thus this research is aimed at verifying among students of nursing the factors of stress commonly experienced by them during the period of professional training. This study is part of the research Construction of instrument to evaluate stress in nursing students and is being carried out by the University of São Paulo's Nursing School, and the framework adopted in Pasquali's the oretical model. According to this model, the results presented in this survey refer to the theoretical procedures and were obtained based on a sequence of questions the researcher created and were answered by the students. That sequence revealed 31 items that are considered stress factors, which were grouped into five categories: theoretical content, personal difficulties, environment problems, practical content and interpersonal relationships. The items students highlighted indicate the challenging character of the teaching-learning process, which is particularly important in the case of Nursing students, whose mistakes may lead to harm to patients. The need to adjust to the new school demands and obligations, the social and occupational responsibilities that appear in this learning process, the need to better organize daily tasks, the relations with fellow students and the frequent challenges of professional and personal alternatives are shown as stress factors for students.