THE WAYS OF COPING WITH STRESS, THE GENERAL HEALTH LEVEL OF NURSING STUDENTS AND AFFECTING FACTORS

Objective: in this study, as a descriptive research, was planned and applied to determine the ways of coping with stress and general health condition of nursing students. methods: the sample of the study consisted of 167 students currently attending at bandırma school of health, balıkesir university. in the study, three instruments were used: personal knowledge form, the ways of coping with stress inventory, and the general health questionnaire-12 (ghq-12).before the study, permission was taken from the school and during the study it was taken from students. the analyses of the data were obtained by using descriptive statistical, students t test, mann-whitney u, anova, kruskal walles, correlation analyzes and logistic regression tests in spss 11.0. results: the mean score of students in the ghq-12 was 1.92±2.59. according to the ghq-12, 31.1% had probable psychological disorder. the mean scores of students in the subscales of coping with the stress inventory were 2.24±0.48 for self-confident approach (sca), 1.04±0.50 for unconfident self approach (ucsa),0.61±0.47 for submissive approach (sa), 1.94±0.57 for optimistic approach (oa), and 1.85±0.63 for social support seeking approach (sssa). there was a moderate negative correlation between the ghq-12 score and sca (r=-0.329, p=0.000), oa (r=-0.308, p=0.000).it was found that there was a negative weak correlation relationship between ghq-12 score and sssa (r=-0.175, p=0.023). similarly, there was a moderate positive correlation between ucsa (r=0.382, p=0.000). conclusion: the students who more used sca, oa and sssa of cope with stress are decreasing a tendency to depression. as a result of research, the nursing students should be performed periodically surveillance about psychological illnesses and to increase skills of coping with stress should be recommended implementation of training programs.