Campus Location
Dallas Campus (Online)
Date of Award
8-2022
ORCID
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5987-3306
Document Type
DNP Project
Department
Nursing
Degree Name
Doctor of Nursing Practice
Committee Chair or Primary Advisor
Sandra Cleveland
Second Committee Member or Secondary Advisor
Tricia Bernecker
Third Committee Member or Committee Reader
Pattie Sunderhaus
Abstract
This project was developed to address the issue of high stress levels among graduate nursing students, which is a common phenomenon that increases the risks of mental health disorders, professional burnout, and poor-quality patient care among students and professional nurses after earning their degrees. This project sought to utilize a simple educational intervention delivered online to impart coping skills to graduate nursing students to assist them in reducing their stress levels. The intervention was a brief, single-session, self-guided educational module featuring informational and participative elements related to stress causes, the impacts of stress, and stress reduction techniques. In total, 11 graduate nurse practitioner students from one nursing program took part in the project. The analytical results indicated that the participants experienced significant (p < .05) improvements in their usage of healthy coping skills after taking part in the intervention compared to before. Moreover, the participants reported lower levels of stress at postintervention compared to pre-intervention. These findings suggest that nursing programs should screen for stress among graduate students and offer options for stress education and reduction to students. The findings could therefore help to improve stress outcomes and related patient care outcomes for graduate nursing students through offering ways for students to learn healthy coping techniques.
Keywords: stress, professional burnout, nursing, coping, intervention
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Sawyer, Shandria K., "Addressing Stress in Graduate Nurse Practitioner Nursing Students" (2022). Digital Commons @ ACU, Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 504.
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/etd/504
Included in
Academic Advising Commons, Adult and Continuing Education and Teaching Commons, Higher Education and Teaching Commons, Other Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons, Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing Commons, Public Health and Community Nursing Commons, Public Health Education and Promotion Commons