Investigate the anxiety between undergraduate and postgraduate nursing students and its relation to their socio-demographic characteristics

Abstract

Objective: Anxiety is a warning sign for an upcoming risk and is a common reaction of most people reacting to stressful events. The purpose of this study was to investigate anxiety between undergraduate and postgraduate students in nursing and its relation to their socio-demographic characteristics.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional, quantitative study with a study sample of comprised of n = 177 nursing students, n1 = 121 undergraduate students and n2 = 56 postgraduate students.  The collection of the empirical data was carried out using a fully structured and Self-reported questionnaire which recorded their individual characteristics and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). The statistical analysis was conducted using the software package SPSS.

Results: State anxiety was not found to differ significantly between undergraduate and postgraduate students. While Trait and Total Anxiety differed significantly, showing higher mean levels for undergraduate students. Moreover, the students of the last two years of study had a higher mean level of State Anxiety compared to the students of the first year of study.

Conclusions: The majority of undergraduate and postgraduate students showed relatively low levels of anxiety. Animportant factor to predict anxiety in undergraduate students was the year of study, while for the postgraduate students were age and marital status.