Identifying the Sources of Academic Stress and Coping Strategies in New Nursing Students

摘要

Backgrounds: Differences between the education system of senior high school and college can cause stress on students, especially for new students. This problem requires students looking for ways to address these issues by using a coping mechanism. Objectives: This study aims to determine the source of the cause of academic stress in nursing freshman and how coping mechanism or coping strategies used by them. Methods: The study was a descriptive analytic design. The samples were 110 nursing freshman taken by simple random sampling technique. The research instrument used Coping Strategies Inventory (CSI). The data were analyzed by statistic descriptive and with Mann Whitney test. Results: The results showed 56 (51%) of students experiencing low academic stress and high stress on 54 students (49%). The highest cause of stress was academic factors and the lowest was environmental factors. The majority of the coping mechanism at the level of moderately adequate. Coping strategies that have used are problem solving and problem focused engagement. Conclusion: Based on the findings, the recommendations such as teach stress management, counseling, socialization of how learning programs that will be undertaken by the new nursing students for college later and reduce the academic burden on first semester because for this semester students is still in the adaptation stage.