Psychological distress, personality, and adjustment among nursing students

SummaryPsychological distress and poor adjustment among a significant number of nursing students is an important issue facing nursing education. The concerns need to be studied in detail and solutions need to be built into the nursing course in order to help students with such difficulty.This study used a cross-sectional survey design to study psychological distress, personality and adjustment among nursing students attending the College of Nursing, Christian Medical College, Vellore, India. One hundred and forty five nursing students were assessed using the General Health Questionnaire 12, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, and the Bell’s Adjustment Inventory to investigate psychological distress, personality profile and adjustment, respectively. Thirty participants (20.7%) of the 145 students assessed reported high scores on the General Health Questionnaire. Psychological distress was significantly associated with having neurotic personality and adjustment difficulties in different areas of functioning.