Background: In psychiatric clinical settings, nursing students face complex situations and problems that can lead to distress. This study was aimed to assessing stress level and coping behaviors of psychiatric nursing students pre and post clinical practice. This study: used a quasi – experimental pre and post test design. Setting: The study was carried out at the Faculty of Nursing, Benha University and The psychiatric Mental Health Hospital in Benha City as a clinical area for nursing students. Subject: All nursing students enrolled in 4thacademic year 2015-2016 undergoing the Psychiatric Mental health Nursing training course Tool for data collection: This tool was used for data collection consists of three parts: Part I: It was concerned with socio-demographic characteristic of the studied subjects. Part II:The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) was adopted by Sheu et al., (1997) to examine nursing students’ stress levels Part III: Coping behavior Inventory (CBI) scale adopted by Sheu et al.,(2002) to identify nursing students’ coping strategies. The main findings of the study were: There are Minimal improvements in stress level among Psychiatric Nursing students in 4th year at Benha University pre compared by post clinical practice and more frequently use coping strategies regarding avoidance, problem solving, optimistic and transference behavior in pre compared by post clinical practice. Also, it has proved that there is a highly statistical significant correlation between stress level and coping behaviors of the study sample pre and post clinical practice. Recommendations: Further studies: This study was conducted only at one nursing college in one country. Future studies should consider replicating the study at multiple nursing colleges and multiple countries. Key Words: stress, coping behavior, clinical practice |
