الفهرس 
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Abstract
Stress in nursing students is an area of concern and it may result in psychological distress, physical complaints, behavior problems and poor academic performance. Psychiatric nursing students have their own unique stressors specific to their field, students reported experiencing elevated levels of academic stress during PMHN. Nursing students, however, experienced higher levels of stress during the academic year in conjunction with elevated external stressors, including increased clinical responsibilities and course requirements.
Aim of the Study:
This study aims to assess stressors associated with clinical psychiatric nursing experience among technical nursing students.
This aim will be achieved through the following:
1. Assessing student’s expectation in relation to psychiatric illness, psychiatric patients and psychiatric nursing experiences.
2. Assessing clinical stressors and symptoms of stress among technical nursing students.
Research questions:
To fulfill the aims of this study the following research questions will be formulated:
• What are expectations of technical nursing students before the psychiatric mental health nursing experience?
• What are the stressors associated with clinical psychiatric nursing experience among technical nursing students?
Research design:
A descriptive design was used in carrying out the study.
Methodology:
Setting:
The study was conducted at Technical Nursing Institute affiliated to El Kasr- El Aini Cairo University.
Subjects:
Study Type:
This study follows convenient sample, included all available students in the above-mentioned settings.
Study Size:
Sample size includes 81 students (total students in the second year) who are studied in psychiatric department at Technical Nursing Institute.
Inclusion Criteria:
Psychiatric mental health nursing student’s first experience.
Gender: Male and Female.
Tools of data collection:
This tool was following questionnaire after reviewing by supervisors related literatures, the questionnaire used to assess stressors associated with clinical psychiatric nursing experience among technical nursing students. It consisted of three parts as the following:
First part:
Socio-demographic interviewing sheet:
Demographic characteristics of students include (age, gender, marital status, residence, monthly allowance, current academic year and interest in studying psychiatric nursing).
Second part:
Student Expectation Questionnaire sheet:
Used to assess student’s expectation before starting psychiatric course, this questionnaire was adopted from Tawfik (1997). It includes 3 items that assess student’s expectation in relation to psychiatric illness, psychiatric patients and psychiatric nursing experience. The questionnaire consists of 15 questions each question consists of 4 choices to collect and identify the students’ knowledge before starting their psychiatric mental health study.
Third part:
Practical Stressors Interviewing sheet:
Used to determine practical stressors and symptoms of stress during psychiatric clinical course, it was adopted from
Ezz El-Din (2011) when dealing with psychiatric patient during psychiatric training.
The present study revealed that the following main results:
• More than half of the studied students (51.9%) their aged less than 20 years with a mean age of 20.52 ± 0.853, more than three quarters (86.4%) of the students under study were males, approximately most of the students (97.5%) were single, regarding residence, (72.8%) of students under study housing inside Cairo with their families, more than three quarters (86.4%) of students has adequate monthly income and also (87.7%) of the students were satisfied and interest with studying psychiatric course.
• More than half of the studied students had clinical stressors from stress volatile nature of the psychiatric patient from calm to aggressive (61.7%) as well as deficiency in hospital resources to handle Psychiatric disorder (60.5%).
• Less than one third of the studied students (28.4%) had feeling of cold extremities during clinical psychiatric course.
• More than half of the students under study (58%) had moderate level of clinical stressors.
• Nearly three quarter of the students under study (75.3%) had low level of stress symptoms during clinical psychiatric course.
• A statistically significance relation was found between gender and level of clinical stressors.
• A highly statistically significant relation was found between satisfaction of studying psychiatric course and level of clinical stressors.
• A highly statistically significant relation was found between gender and level of stress symptoms during clinical course.
Conclusion
Based on findings of the present study, it can be concluded that:
Technical nursing students enter the clinical psychiatric experience with varying expectations of psychiatric care and the mental health system. The most common expectation was stigma. The study reflected aggressiveness of psychiatric patients as well as deficiency in resources to handle psychiatric disorder as most reported stressors during psychiatric clinical experience. Also, the study reflected significant differences between gender and satisfaction with studying psychiatric course versus level of clinical stressors. There was a relationship between gender and level of stress symptoms during clinical course. The more exposure students have to mental health nursing through clinical experiences and theory, the more prepared they feel to care for persons with mental health issues. Furthermore, students are more likely to consider careers in mental health nursing as their exposure to mental health nursing increases.
Recommendations
In the light of present study findings, the following recommendations are suggested:
• Teaching students about stress management and self-care skills throughout a periodic meeting with the students to raise their awareness about the coping strategies with stress and stressors.
• Ensure the effectiveness of a range of support services for students throughout programs which offer appropriate academic assistance and guidance.
• Preparing clinical educators and teachers involved in training the nursing students adequately are imperative issues that might help students effectively deal with these clinical stressors.
• Clinical educators and teachers should adequately prepare students before clinical practice and orient them to the hospital environments, staff, and psychiatric patients and polices of the clinical training places.
• Students can build meaningful relationships with patients by spending dedicated time with patients outside of required nursing tasks for example, engaging in conversation on non-clinical topics, or participating in an activity such as playing cards.
• Designing effective educational program to identify nature of psychiatric illness and how to deal with psychiatric patients with different tools (videos and films) before starting clinical training.
• Equipping students with essential clinical knowledge and skills, reviewing the clinical psychiatric curriculum requirements.