Thematic Review: Stress Levels in Nursing Students, Factors and Coping Measures

Abstract

To determine the level of stress, factors that
cause it and coping strategies of nursing students
to face it. Methodology: this research article was
carried out by searching for national and
international articles. The related investigations
are not older than five years and were extracted
from recognized databases such as Scielo,
Dialnet, Elsevier, Pubmed and indexed journals.
Results: it was found that the stress level among
the students of the reviewed studies is mostly
moderate or medium and only in some cases is it
high. A relationship between stress level and
academic overload was also found in most
articles. However, stress levels vary from one
institution to another taking into account factors
such as the requirement of the curriculum,
extracurricular activities, time to develop
academic tasks and clinical practices. Good
habits and a healthy lifestyle and having high
self-esteem are related to low levels of academic
stress. Planning is one of the most used coping
strategies. Conclusion: academic overload, along
with the lack of time to complete university
activities, usually triggers stress. The health
sciences curricula are usually very demanding,
with a large amount of theoretical content in
basic and preclinical sciences, with a lot of face
to-face activity, as well as various non-face-to
face activities, which causes episodes of
moderate stress.