Depression, Anxiety and Stress Levels Among the First Year Nursing Students

Nursing involves activities and interpersonal relationships that are often stressful. A study done in Iran found that first-year students experienced greater stress than students in subsequent years whereby mean stress was significantly greater in first year than in fourth year nursing students with p = 0.009 4. Coping has been viewed as a stabilizing factor that may assist individuals in maintaining psychosocial adaptation during stressful events. There are many ways to cope with stress. In this study, transference coping strategy (crying, sleeping, eating, listening to music, hang out with friends, take a deep breath, shopping, watch television, take a bath, screaming, internet surfing, sports, punch something and do household chores) was used as the choice of coping strategy. Most of the participants in this study will cry and sleep to cope with their stress, 18.5% will eat, 9.5% will listen to music and 4.2% will hang out with their friends. In a study done in Hong Kong, whereby four types of coping strategies (transference, stay optimistic, problem solving, and avoidance) were used as the choice of coping strategies among nursing students, transference coping strategy was the most frequently used5. This is because, transference coping strategies may be easier and more convenient to use compared with other strategies. Besides that, students have not known or learnt about types of effective or useful coping strategies during clinical practice. Moreover, students' stress may be considered as a temporary symptom because they have less responsibility in caring for patients. Also, they can rely on their clinical supervisors when problems arise. Transference strategies may therefore be effective over a short period5. According to table 1, 41.1% of students have no depression, while 58.9% of students have depression. Among the depressed student nurses, 32.1% have mild depression, 16.1% have moderate depression, 8.9% have severe depression, and 1.8% have extremely