Nursing students: Vulnerability/Health and well.being

Abstract

Introduction: The Nursing student, in his transitional process and during higher education frequency, shares common issues, inherent to his young adult and undergraduate conditions. However the entrance and frequency in a course with the characteristics of a Nursing degree, particularly psychologically demanding, confronting the students with complex experiences, mainly in the emotional level,sometimes with several consequences, inclusively in his health condition and well-being. Objectives: Identify determinant factors in the transitive process of the nursing student, wich are enhancers in health vulnerabilities. Methods: This is a quantitative, descriptive, exploratory and cross-sectional study, conducted to a population of 250 students, attending a Nursing School, in the South of Portugal. The instruments used to collect the data included a sociodemographic questionnaire; the questionnaire on health status SF36-V2 (Ferreira, 2000) and the scale of well-being (Bradley, 2009). Results: Were significant predictors of change in the health and well-being of nursing students : gender (p = 0.006); satisfaction with the course (p = 0.015); year of the course (p = 0.000) and clinical teaching (p = 0.018) Conclusions: Being a Nursing student, of the female gender, the satisfaction with the course, attending the 2nd year and being in clinical training, are enhancers, liable to change the health and well-being of the student. Given the results, we believe it is essential, during initial and ongoing formation, know the factors that make the student vulnerable, in order to develop appropriate support strategies, since performance and academic success, depend largely on his health and well-being condition.