INTRODUCTION:

Stress is defines as a process, in which environmental demands exceed the adaptive capacity of an organism, results in psychological and biological changes that may place persons at risk for disease.¹Stress can differentiated into two types:

According to severity: 1) Acute 2) chronic

Acute stress is defined as single events such as a life transition or an uncharacteristic event. Chronic stress is defined as to recurring demands such as financial difficulties, academic concerns or disability.

The term stress was brought from the field of physics by Hans selye. In physics, the stress was described as force that produces strain in physical body. Hans selye used the term stress after completing is medical training in 1920. He notices that all the patient admitted in hospital for the separate cause, but stress is the one thing which is common among all.²

This kind of stress may cause psychological, physical and behavioural problems. In training and education peroid the student nurse exposed to stressor which affect their learning skills.³Individual influences with their childhood experience affect physical and mental health in future lives.⁴ This study shows the cause of stress among the youth. After identifying the cause researcher suggest that most significance can be given to development stage of child into adolescent. They should develop in a positive environment more significance should be given to outdoor activities and create peaceful environment by minimizing the negative impact of stressor.⁵

Stress has become a part of students’ academic life due to various internal and external expectations placed upon their shoulders. Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to the problems associated with academic stress as transition occurs at an individual and social level. It leads to alter in cognitive and behavioural pattern.⁶

Adolescent period is a transition period between childhood to adulthood. The world health organisation defines adolescence both in terms of age and in terms of a phase of life marked by special attributes. These attributes includes rapid physical growth and development, social and psychological maturity.⁷In modern life, stress is a major health problems, that affects all people, mainly the adolescent age groups.⁸ Adolescence is an important period in human’s life. Adolescence is exposed to most stressful life experience and there is some proof that increases in stress account and causes increase rate of psychological problems. Adolescent facing various health problems, mainly mental illness, are in a preparation peroid for undertaking their own duties and responsibilities.⁹

Adolescence frequently has to cope with various stressors that could be potential threats to their healthy development and wellbeing. During the adolescent peroid,not only are they facing physical health problems,but they are also prone to get a huge number of mental heath problems.¹⁰Most important mental health consequences of stress in adolescence, such as anger, depression, anxiety, suicide, substance use and antisocial behaviour are reviewed.¹¹Adolescent is a period of increase stress and the various studies denote that increase in rate of stress among adolescent. Sudden change in physical, psychological, physiological and social aspects during the adolescent phase may increase the stress reactivity. Adolescents achieve their health lifestyle and behaviour when they are physically, emotionally and socially well.¹²

Perceived stress can be defined as the level of stress that they are experiencing currently over the period of time.¹³

NEED FOR THE STUDY:

According to Fred Luthans (1998), stress is an individual’s response to a disturbing factor in the environment and consequences of such reaction. Stress involves interaction between the person and environment.¹⁴

According to Wheeler 2007, stress is physics word which refers to the amount of force used on an object and it related in real life as to how certain issues that carry force applied to human life. Ex. Financial difficulties, all carry force or pressure on person’s body - mind and spirit.¹⁵

According to Shobhana Nepal (2010) a cross sectional study was conducted among 840 adolescents in Dehra Dun, the result showed overall prevalence of psychosocial problem to be 31.2%. It is more in males (34.7%) compare to females (27.6%).¹⁶

According to Aastha Jain (2018) conducted a comparative study with objectives to examine the gender difference in perceiving stress across difference situation during college years. The design adopted for the study in convenient sampling. The total sample size of 200 UG students. The tool used in the study is Perceived stress scale. The result shows that female perceived more stress than males. The study concluded that they were suggest to practise meditation, lifestyle modification technique and manage their times.¹⁷

In 2020, the stress level reported for all adults is 5.0. That makes a moderately increased from the previous year, when it was 4.9, according to stress statistics from 2019. Teenagers stress level 5.8 out of 10 during the school year. Nearly 25% of people report feeling extreme stress during the holidays. 45% of college students seek counseling due to stress. Around 70% of students are often or always stressed about school work. One out of five college students have think about suicide. College students commonly experience stress because of increased duties, a lack of good time management, changes in eating and sleeping habits, and not taking enough breaks for self-care. Transitioning to college can be a source of stress for most first-year students.¹⁸

We need to correlate the knowledge of stress in adolescent men and women because they face significant problems and risk related to their health development. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the knowledge on stress among adolescent of men and women between the age group of 17 to 21 years.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:

A Comparative Study to assess the level of perceived stress among the college students between age group of 18 to 21 years at Puducherry.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:

1. To assess the perceived level of stress among college students .

2. To compare the perceived level of stress between male and female students.

3. To associate the level of perceived stress with selected demographic variables.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

Research approach:

Quantitative approach was used for this study.

Research Design:

Comparative research design.

Setting of the study:

The study was conducted at the MTPG and RIHS college.

Population:

The population under study includes the UG students of the MTPG and RIHS college.

Sample:

The adolescent subjects who were studying in the B.sc Nursing I, II, III and IV year between the age group of 18-21 years of male and female who fulfil the inclusion were selected as a sample in this study.

Sample size:

120 samples were used for this study.

Sampling Techniques:

Purposive sampling techniques.

Inclusion criteria for sampling:

· Students who are studying in B.sc Nursing

· Students who are understand English

· Students who are willing to participate.

Exclusion Criteria for sampling:

· Students who don’t understand English.

Data collection tool:

Tool consists of two sections,

Section A: Demographic variables tool

Section B: Perceived stress scale

Description of tool:

Section A: Section A consists of demographic variables such as age, sex, religion, level, Type of family, Father's qualification, Mother's qualification, Occupation of father, Occupation of mother, History of medical or psychiatric illness.

Section B: Perceived Stress Scale consisting of 10 statements where used to assess the level of perceived stress among adolescent boys and girls. The scoring provided for each statement is 4 to 0 (4 very often, 3 fairly often, 2 sometime, 1 almost never, 0 never). Overall scoring is 0 to 40.

Overall scoring:

0 to 13 - Low stress

14 to 16 - Moderate stress

27 to 40 - High Perceived stress

Data Collection Procedure:

After getting permission from the respective authority, the researchers conducted the study among the students at MTPG and RIHS college, Puducherry. The data collection period was 1 week. Prior to the data collection the researcher selected samples on the basis of convenient sampling techniques. The data was collected from 250 samples. confidentiality and privacy were maintained.

Major Findings of The Study and Discussion:

The data was organized and presented under the following sections.

Section A: Distribution of demographic variables among the samples:

Majority (60.8%) of the students belongs to 17 to 20 age groups. Regarding the sex of the sample denotes half of them were males (50%) and half of them were females (50%). Most of them were studying first year (25.8%). Majority of them were hindu (84.2%). Majority (76.7%) were belongs to nuclear family. Majority (34.2%) of the father’s have primary level of education. Majority (50%) of mother’s have primary level of education. Majority (71.1%) of father’s working in private. Most of them (70.8%) mother’ s were home makers. Majority (97.5%) of them not have any history of psychiatric illness.

Section B: Distribution of subjects according to level of perceived stress:

Table 1: Distribution of subjects according to level of perceived stress. (N=120)

Level of Perceived Stress	Frequency (N)	Percentage (%)
Low stress	17	14.2
Moderate stress	92	76.7
High perceived stress	11	9.2

The findings reveal that out of 120 students the highest percentage of 92 (76.7%) of them had moderate stress, 17 (14.2%) of them had low stress and 11 (9.2%) of them had high perceived stress.

Section C: Comparison of perceived stress between male and female.

Figure-1: Comparison of perceived stress between male and female.

The finding reveals that the female has higher percentage (41.6%) in moderate level of stress than male (35%). In account of low stress and high perceived stress male has higher percentage than female. Majority 11 (9.2%) of them had low stress whereas female had 6 (5%). Majority, male 7(5.8%) of them had high perceived stress and female had 4 (3.3%).

Section D: Association of selected demographic variables with the level of perceived stress.

Table 2: Association of selected demographic variables with the level of perceived stress. (N=120)

Demographic variables

Low stress

Moderate stress

High perceived stress

Chi-square value

P value

No.

$χ$ $2$

Age (in years)

17 - 20

20 - 23

23 - 26

1.299

df=4

0.862

(NS)

Sex

Male

Female

Transgender

2.984

df=2

0.002**

(S)

Religion:

Hindu

Christian

Muslim

Any other

1.299

df=6

0.862

(NS)

Level

I year

II year

III year

IV year

7.825

df=6

0.251

(NS)

Type of family

Nuclear family

Joint family

Extended family

Other

2.455

df=4

0.653

(NS)

Father’s qualification

Illiterate

Primary

Secondary

Graduate

2.884

df=6

0.832

(NS)

Mother’s qualification

Illiterate

Primary

Secondary

Graduate

11.435

df=6

0.076

(NS)

Father’s occupation

Government job

Private job

Home maker

0.966

df=4

0.574

(NS)

Mother’s occupation

Government job

Private job

Home maker

Unemployed

13.066

df=6

0.042

(NS)

Previous history of mental illness

Yes

0.936

df=2

0.626

(NS)

*p<0.05-significant, ** p<0.01and ***p<0.001-highly significant

NS – Nil Significant, S - Significant

The chi-square value reveals that the level of perceived stress is highly significant to sex (P=0.002).

CONCLUSION:

The stress in adolescents is common. This study results reveals that the stress is at moderate level among students and comparatively higher in females.

NURSING IMPLICATIONS:

The implications drawn from the study were of vital concern for community nursing practice, nursing education, nursing research and nursing administration.

Nursing service:

Students ‘stress can be well tackled by the importing knowledge to parents and students as well as the teachers by the nurses working the community area or in college other settings. They are the vital component of the health care delivery system. Systemic monitoring and promotion of the IEC, creation of awareness among the family members and the college students can effectively control the stress related outcomes.

Nursing education:

Nursing curriculum should include more content in the area of stress management and prevention in the level of undergraduate and post graduate and creation of IEC materials. Conference, workshops, seminars can be given for the nurses to impart education towards the stress management. The way of teaching and learning process should be changed in accordance to reduce stress among students. Encourage to the college administration to incorporate the co-curricular activities.

Nursing administration:

Nursing administrator should have a special focus to the aspect of students stress and its management. They play a vital role in planning, organizing, supervising and implementing Conference, workshops, seminars related to stress and its prevention. Frequent in-service training and pre-service training program should be arranged. The 33nurse administrator should arrange for proper hands on training for the parents in the aspect of stress management.

Nursing research:

In nursing, there is scare literature and research done on knowledge and attitude of parents and teachers regarding stress management. Research should be conducted among the school teachers regarding knowledge and attitude towards stress.

RECOMMENDATION:

On the evidence of the study the following recommendations are framed for future study reference:

· Similar study can be conducted in other parts of the students with a large sample.

· The same study can be conducted in different interventions as experimental study.

· The similar kind of study can also be conducted with true experimental design.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST:

The authors have not conflicts of interest regarding this investigation.

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Received on 15.12.2022 Modified on 27.02.2023

Int. J. Nur. Edu. and Research. 2023; 11(3):232-236.

DOI: 10.52711/2454-2660.2023.00053