Study On Mental Health Status And Its Related Factors Of Nursing Students At Different Educational Levels

It was reported that 10%-30% college students had psychological problems, which had influenced their studies and lives. Nowdays the psychological problems have become one of the major reasons for undergraduates to suspend schooling, discontinue studying, even more suicide. Among undergraduates, almost all of nursing students are female. The mental health status of them would be important for current studies, lives and even their development in the future. It would be also related to the future nursing quality and the stability of nursing staff. In recent years, nursing students' mental health has been one of the important focuses of nursing research, most of which were cross-sectional study and focused on one educational level or one grade. Few studies in China made a contrast study of nursing students at different educational levels. Even more, almost no study with case-control study was used to analyze mental health status and its related factors of nursing students at undergraduate level.Objective: To investigate mental health status of nursing students atthree different educational levels(the technical secondary school level, junior college level and undergraduate level), explore the related factors which influence nursing students' mental health and provide a reliable basis for finding early psychological problems, giving timely health education and searching preventing ways.Methods: (1)Five hundred and fifteen nursing students at three different educational levels were clustered and stratified from universities in xi'an. They were investigated with several questionnaires such as SCL-90 (Symptom Checklist 90) , SES (the Self-Esteem Scale) , CSQ(Coping Style Questionnaire) and the questionnaire of nursing students' factors. Spss software was applied to analyze nursing students' mental health status, (2)on the basis of the cross-sectional study, case and control group were formed according to SCL-90 average total score and a case-control study was used to find out the related factors of nursing students' mental health status. x2 test or t test was adopted in mono-variation analysis, Logistic Regression was adopted in multiple variation analysis.Results: (1)The cross-sectional study indicated that there were 33.7 percent of nursing students whose SCL-90 average total score exceeded 160. The number of positive items was 35.02 ±20.45 and the average score of them was 2.54 ± 0.45. Except for interpersonal sensitivity, nursing students got significant higher scores in all SCL-90 indexes than that of the norm of all over the country (P<0.01). The top 3 symptoms that affected nursing students were respectively obsession, interpersonal sensitivity and depression. As a whole, the score of every index of SCL-90 had a descending tendency with nursing educational level increased. There was also difference at the same educational level as follows: the score of most SCL-90 indexes of nursing students ingrade 1 and 3 was higher than that in grade 2 at technical secondary school level, however, the score of most of the indexes was highest in the middle grade at junior college level and undergraduate level. There was no significant between nursing students coming from military university or not (P>0.05) . Nursing students from countryside got higher scores in most SCL-90 indexes than those from city. Nursing students from one-child family got lower scores in most SCL-90 indexes than those from two or more children family. (2) In case-control study, mono-variation analysis indicated that there was significant difference (P<0.05) between nursing students with high score and low score in following factors: having their needs for self-actualization satisfied, having intimate friends, having themselves adapted to new environments, frequency of physical exercises, positive coping style, self-esteem, singleton, being apart from their families, loneliness, heavy study pressures, being afraid of not getting one's degree or unemployment after graduation, frequency of being misunderstood, making oneself discriminated, having love problems or no audients, sleep pattern disturbance, their own health problems in recent year, having worries, negative coping style, family structure, having severe attack of health problems in their families and having an unhappy childhood. Multiple-variation Logistic Regression Analysis suggested that the related factors of nursing students' mental health included heavy study pressures, health problems, family structure, self-esteem and having their needs for self-actualization satisfied.Conclusion: (1)It was not optimistic for nursing students since 33.7 percent of them were found to suffer psychological sympotoms. The mental health status of nursing students at different educational level was also found to range from bad to good. As a whole, the higher...