Clinical Education Stressors from the Perspective of Students of Nursing, Midwifery, and Operating Room: A Study in Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences

Introduction: Continuous investigation of educational stressors, and managing them is essential for quality improvement of clinical education. This study investigated stressors of clinical education from the perspective of nursing, midwifery and operating room students at Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences during year 2010. Methods: This descriptive study was performed on all 230 students of nursing, midwifery and operating room who had passed at least one clinical course. Data gathering tool was a researcher made questionnaire. The mean scores to each five domains of stressors (including inter-personal communication, humiliating experiences, educational environment, clinical experiences, and unpleasant emotions) were calculated (the range of scores was 1 to 5). Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, ANOVA and Tukey post hoc. Results: Among all students, midwifery students gave the highest total stress score in these 5 domains (3.52± .45), and the highest domain score belonged to unpleasant emotions(3.61± .75). After that, the highest tensive domain in nursing group was the educational environment (3.34± .82). In operating room students also, the most tensive domain was unpleasant emotions again (3.29±.86). The results of comparing clinical education stressors in study groups using one-way ANOVA indicated a significant difference among all domains except humiliating experience. Tukey test showed a significant difference between clinical education stressors of midwifery and operating room groups. Conclusion: Students of different fields of medical sciences are exposed to several stressors throughout the clinical education processes. Determining these factors could play an important role in reducing this stress. Considering the fact that unpleasant emotions was the most intensive stressor in this study, paying attention to this issue and exploring its dimensions to implement appropriate strategies seems to be necessary.