Perceived academic-related sources of stress among graduate nursing students in a Jamaican University

Abstract

Background: Graduate education is essential for the improvement of professions by facilitating advancements in career paths, personal growth and enhancing a country's economy. Graduate students frequently view graduate education as moderate to very stressful and this can have a negative impact on their lives. Stress can result in impaired coping, poor academic performance and reduction in cognitive functioning, resulting in the antithesis of academic success.

Objective: A qualitative study was done to gain insight into the perception and sources of academic- related stress among graduate nursing students at an urban school of nursing in Jamaica.

Design: A purposive sample of Master of Science in Nursing students in their penultimate semester for the academic year 2017/ 2018 were invited to participate in the study.

Methods: Nine students participated and each was assigned a selected pseudonym. Data were collected using one- to-one semi-structured interviews and interviews were transcribed verbatim. Thematic content analysis was used to determine emerging themes and coding was done manually.

Results: The themes that emerged were: (1) Workload (2) Research (3) Prioritization (4) Lack of support (5) Lack of feedback (6) Balancing school life (7) Very stressful (8) Expectations of lecturers. Participants perceived that graduate education was very stressful to overwhelming. Academic-related stress was multi-factorial and predominantly due to the rigid curriculum structure. Contributing factors included increased workload; time constraints; the research course itself; lack of support and timely response from research supervisors and delayed responses from the Ethics Committee.

Conclusion: It is very important for educators and curriculum developers to implement innovative strategies that are essential in providing an environment that will facilitate learning and to mitigate stress faced by graduate students.

Keywords: Academic-related stress; Graduate students; Nursing; Perception.