Journal of Client-centered Nursing Care (Aug 2025)
Stress Management Intervention for Nursing Students Working Night Shifts
Abstract
Background: Clinical training on shift duty is critical to nursing education and practice. Stress in night shift duties is a common issue in the nursing field, potentially harming the well-being and academic performance of nursing students. The current study examined the effect of a targeted stress management intervention on self-reported stress levels and stress-related symptoms among night shift nursing students. Methods: A quasi-experimental one group pretest-posttest design was adopted, with 60 students chosen from Krishna Vishwa Vidhyapeeth, Krishna Institute of Nursing Sciences, Maharashtra, Karad-India using a non-probability convenient sampling method. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) and a self-structured questionnaire were used to measure stress and the influence of stress on nurses' health. The intervention consists of four 30-minute sessions delivered on alternate days of the week through a range of teaching modalities. Following each session, students received video links and were encouraged to apply one of the appropriate stress-reduction techniques with a weekly follow-up for one month. Following 30 days, a post-test was administered. Data analysis was done using descriptive and inferential statistics and to test the research hypothesis, paired t test was used in InStat 3 software. The significance level was set at P<0.05. Results: Pre-intervention, 36 students (60%) experienced moderate stress, followed by 16 (26.66%) experiencing mild stress, and 8 (13.33%) experiencing severe stress after the night shift. In contrast, 39 students (65%) reported mild stress and 21 (35%) reported moderate stress following the intervention. The paired t-test value was 29.854, with a P value of <0.01, which was significantly higher than the tabulated t value. After a night shift, nursing students experienced stress-related symptoms such as insomnia, loss of appetite, fatigue, decreased attention, headache, and leg discomfort, which were significantly alleviated after the intervention (P<0.05). Conclusion: Stress management interventions were effective in reducing stress levels; however, students must be continually motivated to engage in these exercises daily.
