A Comparison of Perceived Stress in Nursing Students and Students of Other Majors

Abstract

This thesis is a pilot comparative research study to explore and compare the perceived stress levels of junior-level nursing students and junior level students of other majors. My objective was to determine if nursing students generally feel more stressed than other students, which was inspired by my personal experiences throughout nursing school. For this project I conducted a survey of junior-level nursing students and junior level students of other majors, then ran statistical analyses of the data I collected using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The findings indicated that nursing majors did average a higher score on the perceived stress scale than the nonnursing majors. Additional findings showed that there was a statistically significant correlation between nursing majors and increased level of stress; however, this significance was not strong and needs further exploration with a larger population.