An examination of anxiety levels of nursing students caring for patients in terminal period

Objective: To investigate the anxiety levels of the nursing students who are caring for the patients in the terminal period and to determine whether there is a difference between 3rd, 4th grade in this direction.

Methods: A 40-item “State and Trait Anxiety Scale” was used together with the questionnaire on “Determining the Level of Anxiety Levels of Nursing Students Caring for the Patient at the Terminal Period” for determining the data.

Results: The mean scores and standard deviations of all students from the state and trait anxiety scales were respectively 41.95±5.06, 48.15±5.44. Averages of 3rd state anxiety scale score was 42.03 ± 5.26, trait anxiety scale averages were 48.08 ± 5.59; Averages of 4th state anxiety scale score was 41.85 ± 4.83, trait anxiety scale averages were 48.24 ± 5.30.

Conclusion: In our study, it was found that there wasn’t significant difference between the 3rd, 4th grade students related to ill patient care in terms of high level of state and trait anxiety during communication and patient care. The state and trait anxiety scores of the students in both grades were found to be higher than the average scores of the scale’s previous applications.