How Undergraduate Nursing Students Cope with Stress during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Interpretive Description
Date
2021-11
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Abstract
Stress is a critical issue globally in undergraduate nursing education with studies showing stress among undergraduate nursing students as a decades-old concern. The COVID-19 pandemic is a new stressor which has created changes and disruptions in undergraduate nursing educational programs. The purpose of this qualitative, Interpretive Description research study was to gain an understanding of the lived experiences of undergraduate nursing students during the exceptional context of the COVID-19 including their perceptions of stress and their identified coping strategies to manage stress amid their nursing program. Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) Transactional Model of Stress and Coping was used as the theoretical foundation to guide this study. The setting for this study was the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Calgary, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Convenience and purposive sampling were used with voluntary participation from the undergraduate nursing students. Semi-structured, individual interviews were conducted to gather participant data. All data was transcribed verbatim, analyzed for themes, and reported in aggregate form. The perception of a stressor is unique to each individual, however, broad categories of stressors were found to be common amongst nursing students, along with new stressors associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings indicated that the participants exhibited a common characteristic of strong personal motivation with a focused desire to succeed in the nursing program.
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Keywords
Stress, Coping, COVID-19, Pandemic, Undergraduate nursing education, Undergraduate nursing students
Citation
Park, G. L. (2021). How undergraduate nursing students cope with stress during the COVID-19 pandemic: an interpretive description (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.