Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-29-2023
Description
Background
Nursing professional health courses have been reported to be very exhaustive and stressful, with most nursing students reporting moderate levels of stress.
Purpose
This study was designed to compare the spiritual well-being, coping strategies, psychological well-being, anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation between Taiwanese and Australian nursing students.
Methods
Three hundred eighty-one nursing students (180 from Taiwan and 201 from Australia) were recruited for this cross-sectional comparative research study. The Psychological Well-being Scale, Spiritual Well-being Scale, Coping Strategies Inventory Short-Form, Hamilton Anxiety Scale, Zung Depression Scale, and Brief Screen for Adolescent Depression Scale were used to collect data. SPSS 27.0 was used for data analysis. Descriptive data analysis, chi-square tests, independent t test, Pearson correlations, and stepwise multiple regressions were used to examine the research questions.
Results
Students in Australia had higher mean scores than Taiwanese nursing students for psychological well-being, life satisfaction/self-actualization, and using problem-focused disengagement coping strategies, whereas Taiwanese students had higher mean scores for using emotion-focused engagement coping strategies and depression than their Australian nursing students. Spiritual well-being and problem-focused disengagement were shown to be significantly and positively related to psychological well-being and significantly and negatively related to anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation in both groups. No significant difference between Australian students and Taiwanese students was found in anxiety, suicidal ideation, and negative-emotion-related alcohol use.
Conclusions/Implications for Practice
The multiple regressions performed in this study support life satisfaction/self-actualization and the emotion-focused disengagement coping strategy as significant predictors of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation in both student groups. The findings of this study help nursing program faculty better understand the key factors of influence on nursing student mental health and provide a conceptual framework for using problem-focused coping strategies and spiritual education on students.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Citation Information
Yeh, Pi-Ming; Moxham, Lorna; Patterson, Christopher; Antoniou, Carolyn; and Liou, Jenn-Chang, "A Comparison of Psychological Well-Being, Coping Strategies, and Emotional Problems Between Taiwanese and Australian Nursing Students" (2023). ETSU Faculty Works. 954.
https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works-2/954
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published byWolters Kluwer Health, Inc.
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CCBY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This article originally appeared in the Journal of Research Nursing.