Stress Among Nursing Students

In an era of increasing competition in nursing field, nursing education is considered as one of the most crucial element for improving the quality of professional identity of future nurses. Nursing education in Saudi Arabia underwent dramatic change during the recent years as a result of increasing demand for highly qualified skillful nurses. Ultimately, the attention to nursing student education and overcoming any defects which affected the learning process is a crucial goal for all academic nursing institutions [1].

Stress is the pattern of both specific and nonspecific responses that an organism makes to stimulus and/or events that disturb its equilibrium and exceed its ability to cope [2]. Stress has been identified as a twentieth century

Also the students’ had to provide physiological, psychological and social care to critically ill patients with their fear of making mistakes or dying of terminally ill patients.

Others [13,14] reported sources of stress among student nurses include; negative interaction with instructors, continuous observation by instructors and unpunctuality, poor relationships with hospital staff, and sometimes even talking with other health care providers. Moreover, stress in nursing students may arise from a combination of personal and extracurricular factors rather than from the educational program itself.

In the past decades, stress among CCN students has become an area of growing interest as it may result in psychological distress, physical complaints, behavioral problems and poor academic achievement. Some stressors among CCN students may be motivating, whereas too high levels interfere with learning process. Excessive and prolonged stress can be harmful to a student 's academic achievement and may lead a student to drop out of college

Moreover, stress could lead to serious health problems with a wide variety of both physiological and psychological symptoms such as; anxious, irritability, decreased concentration, digestion problems, eating disorders, frequent backache, headaches, mood swings, nervousness, tremors, and sleep disorders [6-8,19,20].

Since, CCN students are more prone to a wide assortment of stressors during their theoretical and clinical experience which may interfere with their learning process. Also despite the growing literature on stress among nursing student internationally, apparently little can be found on the literature highlighting experiences of Saudi student nurses. Therefore, the current study aims to explore the stress level and stressors as perceived by CCN students, and pinpoint the relationship between stress and academic