Stress, anxiety and depression in portuguese nursing students.

Abstract

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of stress, anxiety and depression among Portuguese undergraduate nursing students. Method: Cross-sectional and descriptive study. One hundred and fifty-five nursing students from two nursing schools in Lisbon participated in this study. The data collection instrument consisted on sociodemographic and health behavior variables and the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21)-Short Form (Pais-Ribeiro, Honrado, & Leal, 2004). The DASS 21 consists of 21 items distributed in equal numbers by three scales, Depression (α=0.92), Anxiety (α=0.80) and Stress (α=0.87). The cut-off scores have been developed for defining mild/moderate/severe/extremely severe scores for each DASS scale. The sociodemographic variables were analyzed by Pearson chi-square analysis for dichotomous data. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of two nursing’s schools. Results: Depression prevalence is 43.3%, anxiety 54.1% and Stress 45.1%. Depression was classified as mild in 12.4% of the sample, moderate in 13.7%, severe in 7.7% and extremely severe in 9.4%. Anxiety was mild in 18%, moderate in 12.4%, severe in 9.4% and extremely severe in 14.2%. Stress was classified as mild in 14.2%, moderate in 11.6%, severe in 12.9% and extremely severe in 6.4%. Pearson Chi-Square's analysis revealed a significant relationship between depression and student worker; anxiety showed significant relationships with the type of education, student worker, marital status and age; stress revealed a significant relation between student workers and marital status. Conclusions: Depression, anxiety and stress are highly prevalent in Portuguese nursing students. According to our results, it is suggested that interventions be made to improve the mental health of nursing students.