THE IMPACT OF SELF-ESTEEM AND STRESS ON THE HEALTH OF NURSING STUDENTS
Background: Nursing is postulated to be among the most stressful of the health care professions. A lack of personal control over the work environment, emotional and physical demands of caring for patients, work overloads, substandard staffing, burnout, and a lack of a social and administrative support have been identified as stressors experienced by nurses in the work place (Auerbach, 2007; Toh, Ang & Devi, 2012). The health care system is facing a significant shortage of nurses, leading to an increase in the level of stress experienced by those currently practicing This is likely to negatively impact their overall physical and mental health. Sharma & Kaur (2012) posit that too much stress may reduce self-esteem, cause mental and physical health issues, and affect nursing students’ academic achievement. Because one in five nurses leave the profession within the first year of practice, intervention strategies must be identified to help nursing students and new nurses deal with excessive stress (Madkour, 2009).
It is well established that a relationship exists between stress and health. Self-esteem is also known to impact one’s health. Rosenberg (1985) defines self-esteem as an evaluation which an individual makes and maintains with regard to him/herself. Further, it is a favorable or unfavorable view of self. Stinson, et al (2008) found that individuals with low self-esteem experienced increased health problems over time while those with high self-esteem had a decreased number of health-related problems. Thus, it appears that one’s level of self-esteem may serve as a protective factor between the amount of experienced stress and health problems/issues. Since nurses experience high levels of stress both in school and in the workplace, it is important to identify those at risk for stress-related health problems.
Methods: A convenience sample of 100 nursing students from a 5 semester baccalaureate program participated in this arm of a larger, longitudinal study. General demographic, work, and family information were collected. Stress was measured using the Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983) in their first semester. Self-esteem was measured using 10 self-esteem items on the International Personality Item Pool (Goldberg, et al., 2006) and mental and physical health were measured using the SF-12 health survey (Ware, et al., 2002) at the beginning and 8 months into the program.
Results: Descriptive and hierarchical regression analyses will be done to look at the relationship between stress, self-efficacy and mental and physical health at these 2 time points in the study.
Implications: Stress in nursing is multifaceted and cannot be eliminated from professional practice. The extent that self-esteem plays a protective role in maintaining mental and physical health must be studied to assist educators, and later supervisors to design programs to manage stress and enhance self-esteem in students and graduate nurses. This could potentially buffer or protect new nurses from the negative effects of on-the-job stressors.