Role of Social Support on Nursing Students' Perceived Stress during Clinical Training: An Intervention Study

Abstract

Background: Nursing students have the same stressors as other college students in addition experience a clinical component, which is highly stressful. Social support networks can help the students during problem or stress.Aim of the study: Evaluate the role of social support on nursing students' perceived stress during clinical training: an intervention study. Design: A quasi-experimental pretest-and-posttest design was used to determine the role of social support on nursing students' perceived stress during clinical training in Technical Health Institute in Zagazig city. Setting: the current study was conducted at Technical Health Institute at El Ahrar, Zagazig, Sharkia Governorate. Sample: A simple random sample of the second-year nursing students from the academic year 2020 - 2021, enrolled in the general nursing department in the first semester. The total number of nursing students were 292; the required sample size was 100 nursing student divided equally randomly into two groups study & control. Tools:two tools were used to collect data for the study. The first tool was Demographic data questionnaire and Student Nurses Stress Index. The second tool Duke–UNC Functional Social Support Questionnaire.Results:There was statistically significant difference between the control group and the study group at post intervention program regards personal, academic, clinical& Inference worries stress levels, with  decreasing levels at post intervention program, p<0.05). There was significant increase in social support score in the study group at post intervention program(p=0.0001). Moreover, the results revealed post- intervention significant negative correlation between stress score and social support score p<0.05. Conclusion: the study intervention program was effective in reducing stress and improve social support usage among the studied nursing students. Recommendations: Applying the study intervention program for more improvements to decrease the risk of stress and improve social support among nursing students in the nursing educational institutions.