Assessing Stress among Health Science University Students and Professionals - Research Paper Example

Assessing Stress among Health Science University Students and Professionals Name of the student Name of the professor Name of the Institution Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 1.0 Introduction 3 3.0 Literature Review 4 4.0 Methodology 5 5.0 Result and Findings 6 6.0 Discussion of the study results 10 7.0 Conclusion and Recommendation 11 Reference 12 1.0 Introduction Transition of students from school environment to university environment could cause a psychological, academic and social shock to them, due to the fact that there is vast difference between school education and college education, students faces several challenges that result from stress (Hamaideh, 2011). There are two major themes and characteristics of modern stress theory. First, the presence of a mechanism through which individuals evaluates events in terms of their meanings that are complete to their psychological and well being. Secondly, individuals regulate their internal states and engage these internal mechanisms to compensate for perturbations induced by external factors. Stress is mostly described as a feeling of being overwhelmed, being highly strung, tense and worried. Physically, people can experience heart palpitations, tightening of the chest, hot and cold flushes, when feelings of stress and anxiety take over. There are many stressful situations and demand occurring in an individual's life, but the individual's perception of being 'stressed' is related to their believed inability to cope with a stressful event. Stressor refers to the factors that cause psychological, physical stress (Hancock & Szalma, 2008). Stressors are classified in terms of their frequency and duration. Some are classified with regard to sudden trauma, chronic stressors, and daily hassles. The main aim of this report is to establish stress level among university students. 2.0 Specific objectives are as follows; 1. To assess stress levels in Students enrolled in Nursing and health related subjects 2. To assess distress levels in students enrolled in Nursing and health related subjects 3. To compare distress levels in students enrolled in Nursing and health related subjects 4. To investigate coping mechanisms in students enrolled in Nursing and health related subjects 3.0 Literature Review There are several researches that have been done on stress that are being experienced by students, causes of stress among students and how these stress are being controlled. Hamaideh (2011) carried out a study aimed at identifying stress and reactions to stress among university students. The study examined the correlations between stressors and study variables. The study result shows that self-imposed stressors are the highest stress among students followed by pressure. The cognitive responses were found to be the highest response to stressors experienced by students. Another study conducted by Chen, Wong, Ra and Gilson (2009) described the relationship between college stress and strategy that can be used in coping with this stress. The study found that psychological well-being has an inverse relationship with college stress while positive coping strategy has buffering effect. Laurence, William and Eiland (2009) conducted a survey among over 453 graduate students. Over 25% of students show depressive symptoms 30% higher than other people who are not students. A systematic review and meta-analysis study was also performed on the prevalence of depression among Iranian university students in 2013, concluding that depression is common in university students with no superiority between males and females, and much higher in single students then married. Therefore the aims of this study are important, as these previous studies show that they were more focused on ‘anxiety and ‘depression', but there seems to be a gap in the literature on measuring ‘distress levels, so we want to find out why students seemed to be suffering with stress, we wanted to know whether students were more distressed than other people in society. We also wondered whether students were stressed to the point of distress. This study aimed at knowing these problems into details. 4.0 Methodology A Cross-sectional study was used; this is an observational study that involves collecting information from a sample or population at one particular point in time. Cross-sectional studies focus on collecting data at an exactly defined time. They are very descriptive in nature and can involve looking at what conditions or characteristics are present in a population. (Trochim, 2006) The participants were 117 University students and professionals enrolled in the subject Health Science Based Practice, session 1, 2014, who at the time of the survey were all invited to participate in the study. The primary outcome is represented by the proportion of students with high to very high distress levels. This has been measured by the: The Kessler Psychological Distress Scale was first developed in 1992, by professors Ron Kessler and Dan Mroczek. This questionnaire was put together to harvest the measure of psychosocial distress, with questions about nervousness, agitation, psychological fatigue, depression, which have been experienced by people in the past four weeks. This is an instrument that has been used by the ABS to assess population distress. Andrews & Slade (2001) Sensitive and specific data have indicated that the K10 has been found to be a very reliable and valuable tool as it can identify likely cases of psychological distress in communities. (Andrews & Slade 2001) Ethics Consideration 1. No approval needed 2. Because we did this ourselves in allocated class time. 3. Because we aren’t going to publish it 5.0 Result and Findings Demographic data Nature of degree From the findings, 83 (71.55%) of students were doing nursing, 15 (12.93%) of the respondents did other courses in health science while18 (15.52%) of students did midwifery degree. Years of the respondents From the findings, 15 of the respondents were aged 15 to 20, 21 of respondents were aged between 21 to 25 years, 17 of respondents aged 26 to 30 years, 22 aged 31 to 35, 13 aged between 36 to 40, 18 aged between 41 to 45 years, 3 aged between 46 to 50 while only 8 aged 51 years and above. Sex of respondents From the findings, 102 (87%) of respondents were female while 15 (13%) of respondents were male. K10 Mean 20.05 Standard Error 0.74 Median 18 Mode 12 Standard Deviation 7.89 Sample Variance 62.32 Kurtosis 1.18 Skewness 1.00 Range 40 Minimum 10 Maximum 50 Sum 2286 Count 114 DASS Stress scale Mean 6.96 Standard Error 0.44 Median 6 Mode 6 Standard Deviation 4.65 Sample Variance 21.58 Kurtosis 0.20 Skewness 0.63 Range 21 Minimum 0 Maximum 21 Sum 793 Count 114 A total of 114 of the target group respondent with mean stress level of 6.96, standard deviation of 4.65 and variance of 21.58 % MW % Nurs % Oth low mod high and very high low 55.56 36.25 33.33 % MW 55.56 33.33 11.11 mod 33.33 18.75 33.33 % Nurs 36.25 18.75 45.00 high and very high 11.11 45.00 33.33 % Oth 33.33 33.33 33.33 From the above table, the K10 results for level of psychological distress different disciplines in health science high stress level are found in nursing students with 45%, followed by other subjects within health science while midwifery student's recorded high of 11.11%. Mode is high in midwifery and nursing students while low distress levels are in midwifery respondents with 55.56 %. The study results show that nursing students experience high-stress level that in most cases turns into distress. 6.0 Discussion of the study results From the study findings, the results indicate a high level of stress among nursing students which in most cases reaches chronicle stage thus resulting into mental illness among people who are pursuing nursing as their career. Some of the major causes of stress are external factors like the amount of work they handle, nature of work they are doing like handle the sick people with diverse needs and requirements exposing nurses to trauma and mental torcher. The stress level of the midwifery is very low and is not exposed to danger like the nursing professionals who in addition requires some guardian and counseling classes. The findings further found that the stress level is high in male students compared to female students. The findings of this study support findings by Laurence, Williams, & Eiland, (2009) that asserts that high pressure in male students is increased by high societal expectation on male respondent. It supports findings by (Hancock, & Szalma, 2008) which conclude that science-related professional have stress compared to non-science professional. 7.0 Conclusion and Recommendation Handling patients and caring for the old is not a simple task couple with getting nursing degree in university expose both students and professionals to a lot of pressure resulting to a lot of stress among the students. With this kind of experience, there is a need for continuous guardian and counseling for students and professionals in this line. There is a need to revise how the nursing professionals are being handle and be given continuous education and counseling on trauma-related stress. They should be educated on how to handle external stress and control its effect using internal factors within individuals. The researcher recommends that the decision makers within health professionals and university should provide nursing and health science students with psychological, social, professional and academic counseling in order to reduce the level of stress within health practitioners and students in generals. This will enable them to achieve better results and have a good mental health. They have to involve professionals and students with different activities to reduce the gaps between the also they have to provide suitable learning and practicing environment which can help in reducing the level of stress. Reference Andrews, G. & Slade, T. (2001) ‘Interpreting scores on the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10)’, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, Vol 25(6), 494-7. Chen,H. Wong,Y. Ran,M. and Gilson,C,(2009). Stress among Shanghai University Students. Journal of Social Work. 9(3). pp. 323-344. Hancock, P. and Szalma, J. (2008) the level of stress among students in Urban and rural secondary schools in Malaysia. European Journal of Social Sciences. 10(2). pp. 43-65 Hamaideh, S. (2011). Stressors and Reaction to Stressors among University Students. International Journal of Social Psychiatry. 57(1). pp. 69-80. Kessler, R.C., et al., (2003). Screening for serious mental illness in the general population. Archives of General Psychiatry, 60(2): p. 184-189 Laurence, B. Williams, C. and Eiland, D. (2009) The Prevalence and Socio-demographic Correlations of Depression, Anxiety, and Stress among a group of university students. Journal of American Health. 58.94-105 Read More