Perceived stress among Macao nursing students in the clinical learning environment

Objective This study aimed at investigation of the stress perceived by Macao nursing students in the clinical learning environment. Methods A cross-sectional research was designed and 203 nursing students in a public higher education institute were recruited. The Stressors in Nursing Students Scale-Chinese Version (SINS-CN) was used to measure nursing students' stress. Data analysis includes descriptive analysis and analysis of variance. Results The overall SINS-CN mean score was 3.33 (SD = 0.49), while the scores for different dimensions were: clinical, 3.44 (SD = 0.54), education, 3.35 (SD = 0.62), finance and time, 3.31 (SD = 0.72), confidence, 3.21 (SD = 0.60), and personal problems, 3.03 (SD = 0.68). Among 10 most common stressors, four belong to the clinical dimension, four to the education dimension, one to the confidence dimension, and one to the finance & time dimension. Analysis for factors associated with stress indicated that no statistical significance was found in most demographic variables, except year two students' stress scores were significantly lower than those of students in other years (p values were between 0.000 and 0.026). Conclusions Macao nursing students, to some extent, experienced stress in clinical learning environment and the stress level was higher than that of Hong Kong nursing students. The most common stressors were related to clinical and educational dimensions. The study suggests that teaching and learning modalities and the workload of nursing students should be reviewed.