Psychological distress in college students is well documented (Griggs, 2017). This phenomenon can lead to depression, anxiety/panic disorders, and social/relationship problems (Univ. of Alberta, n.d.). Stress, anxiety, and depression are the five top threats to students’ academic performance and completion (American College Health Association, 2016) while at the same time, students report underutilizing counseling centers on campus (Eisenberg, Golberstein, & Gollust, 2007).
Nursing students are vulnerable due to enormous pressure to meet and sustain grade and clinical competency requirements to remain in good academic standing. Personality characteristics have been studied in health professions, but not in nursing.
The purpose of this study is to:
- Describe distress and personality characteristics of nursing and non-nursing students.
- Identify if there is a difference with distress in the academic year.
- Evaluate if distressed students would participate in a support program.
Methods:
This study uses a descriptive, longitudinal design with a comparison group to provide a baseline, over two academic semesters.
The Symptom Checklist (SCL-90R) and test of Big Five Personality Factors (Goldberg, 2018) were administered via electronic format at the initiation of the study. The Symptom Checklist was re-administered at the end of the school year. Participants with an elevated level of distress were notified and offered triage services by a trained graduate counseling student who provided resources and options for referral. All data were de-identified.
Results:
Juniors and Seniors are significantly more distressed than Freshman. On average Freshman don’t have clinically significant elevations on the SCL-90. Average distress (GSI) increases to 59 (60 is clinically elevated) for Sophomores. Juniors are the most distressed (m = 65). Seniors (m = 61) are slightly less elevated. This suggests that overall distress increases as students progress through the program.
When looking at overall distress level, results indicated that the mean distress level (M = 61.88) was significantly higher at the end of the academic year than it was at the beginning of the academic year (M = 59.53, SD = 9.75), t(59) = 2.02, p < .05). A look at the individual symptom domains measured by the SCL-90-R provides a more nuanced understanding of student distress. Somatization, Anxiety, Hostility, Paranoid Ideation, and Psychoticism all were significantly more elevated at the end of the academic year when compared with the beginning of the year
Conclusion:
These results indicate a significantly higher level of distress among students than in the literature. Students were more distressed with the second measure. There were several specific symptom domains where we see particular difficulties -- anxiety is a big one, but surprisingly, so were paranoia and psychotisism. Given the need for the nursing profession to educate/graduate competent nurses, it is imperative to identify nursing students in distress and develop interventions that are amendable to nursing students. Students should have the option to complete a distress screening when entering the program and be offered support services. Generational implications may require further study. Retention measures could be measured for a correlation between distress and nursing students.