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theses

Purpose: Everyone experiences stress, but a population that is well known to be impacted by stress are undergraduate nursing students. Nursing program faculty are aware that their students are stressed and despite efforts in place to minimize stress, it continues to be problematic. There is scholarly evidence that exercise improves stress and overall mental health, but it is not a target of stress relief in nursing programs. The purpose of this project is to evaluate if exercise recommendations from the American Heart Association and American College of Sports Medicine will help improve stress, academic load, blood pressure, heart rate and weight in senior, traditional, full-time, undergraduate nursing students at a university in northern New Jersey.
Methodology: This pilot quasi-experimental study assessed if exercise, specifically racewalking and/or jogging/running for at least twenty minutes, for three days a week, for four weeks reduces stress levels from perceived academic load. The study also evaluated changes in blood pressure, heart rate and weight throughout the intervention. The population includes undergraduate senior nursing students at a university in northern New Jersey on two of its campuses. Participants completed the Student Nurse Stress Index, a validated survey, before and weekly during the intervention. Participants documented their blood pressure and heart rate before and after exercise and their weight before and after the intervention.
Results: Sixty-two undergraduate, traditional, full-time students (n=62) completed this project in its entirety. The mean of the Student Nurse Stress Index had an 8.53-point decrease in the total score when comparing preintervention to postintervention. There was a statistically significant decrease in SNSI as the weeks of exercise progressed (p<.000). From the four-factor structure of the SNSI, Academic load, Clinical Concerns and Interface worries also displayed a statistically significant decrease after the intervention. Blood pressure and heart rate readings did not have significant changes from the intervention, but rather weight preintervention and postintervention revealed statistically significant results.
Implications for Practice: Nursing students should be provided with adaptable opportunities to exercise in order to manage stress. This can be done by creating exercise events or exercise clubs within the nursing program.

ETD_9591

doi:10.7282/t3-prba-6718

DNP

Includes bibliographical references

ETD doctoral

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