Relationship between mental health of nursing students and coping, self-esteem and social support
Section snippets
Introductıon
Nursing students cope with the same problems as other young university students in addition to the difficulties of being in the field of healthcare (Karadağ et al., 2008). Nursing students also experience traumatic events such as death and are witness to dying patients from the first moments of their educational training (Sheu et al., 2002). Mental health problems of nursing students in Turkey are borderline to high compared to other university students and to the general population (Beşer and
Background
Studies on nursing students have shown that students who were not in possession of effective coping strategies were at risk of presenting psychiatric symptoms when under stressful conditions (Chan et al., 2009; Guler and Cinar, 2010; Lo, 2002; Sheu et al., 2002). The mental health of nursing students is also negatively affected by some individual factors of their own (Ni et al., 2010). In previous studies carried out on this subject in Turkey, it was found that some individual factors such as
Study Design
This was a cross-sectional, case-control study. Students were classified into two groups, one having high and the other low General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) scores. According to GHQ by taking the cut-off value as 5, two groups were generated, one having high scores (≥5) and the other having low scores (<5) (Kilic, 1996).
All data were collected in May 2015.
Sample Groups/Participants
Participants included nursing students within a four-year educational program in the Department of Nursing at Duzce University in Düzce,
Data Collection
The students were given a self-evaluation questionnaire. Students were contacted for participation in the study outside of class times and they were informed about the aim of the study. Students were also told that their participation was on a voluntary basis. Additionally, in order to maintain confidentiality and anonymity, participants did not write their names on the questionnaire form. Questionnaires were completed within approximately 25 min.
Results
The mean score of the students on the GHQ was 6.44 ± 6.68 (median: 4, min-max: 0–28). Based on their scores from the GHQ, the relevant students were divided into two groups, one having low scores (<5 points) and the other high scores (≥5 points).
The participating students were aged 18–35 years (mean: 20.40 ± 1.88). No significant difference was found between the groups (p = 0.522). The sociodemographic characteristics of the students are given in detail in Table 1.
There was no statistically
Dıscussıon
It is acknowledged that the mental state of nursing students is not at a desirable level in Turkey (Ilhan et al., 2014; Tezel et al., 2009). The mental distress scores of nursing students are higher than those of medical students or of the general female population (Tully, 2004). Therefore, in terms of prevention, it is important to determine the risk factors affecting the mental health of nursing students.
The following part of the study presents mental health risks in terms of the
Conclusions
In this study, the “total stress score”, “self-esteem scale score”,“evaluation of health”, “satisfaction with school life” and “presence of a negative event within the last year” were taken as the main factors affecting the mental health of the nursing students and were included in all models of the GHQ analysis. This finding indicates that these factors have a strong impact on the mental health of nursing students. The nursing education students who scored high on the GHQ also had high levels
Limitations of the Study
This study was limited to Turkish nursing students. This study shows only the relationships between variables and does not show causality, because it was a correlational research study.
Conflict of Interest Statement
Conflicts of interest: none.
Funding Statement
“This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.”
Author Contributions
Study design: KA, YN, CS, AF, AD.
Data collection: KA, YN, AF, AD.
Data analysis: CS.
Manuscript writing: KA, YN, CS, AF, AD.
Submission Declaration
This manuscript is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and if accepted for publication, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all students who participated in the study.
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