COVID-19 pandemic and nursing students: Stress, depression, and coping behaviors – An exploratory study

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has created a confused state of day-to-day affairs among people of all walks of life. The sudden changes in the routine classes and lack of available resources for continuing academic activities are the major sources of stress and other mental health issues among nursing students. AIM: To determine nursing students' stressful experiences, the presence of clinical depression due to the pandemic, and coping behaviors adopted by them. METHODOLOGY: Nonexperimental, exploratory, cross-sectional research design was used. A total of six institutions have been selected for the study. Three hundred and sixty-seven participants who fulfilled the eligibility criteria were selected by the nonprobability convenient sampling method. The tool consisted of 4 parts: (a) pro forma to elicit sociodemographic variables, (b) Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) to assess the level of stress, (c) Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) to screen for features of depression, and (d) bipolar scale to measure the coping behaviors. The data were collected through an online survey. RESULTS: Out of 367 nursing students, 318 (86.64%) were in the group of 18–22 years, and a majority (74.38%) were female. A majority of participants (30.79%) had high symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. A significant relationship between nursing students' stress scores with coping activities such as watching the news (B = 0.735, P < 0.05), anxiety (B = 1.326, P < 0.001), health (B = −2.891, P < 0.05), exercise (B = −1.656, P < 0.05), and faith (B = 1.150, P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: To promote the mental health and overall well-being of nursing students, proper guidance and counseling by the teachers and mentors are needed.