Are coping strategies affected by stress management techniques among nursing students?

As nursing students commonly experience stress, they encounter stress either adaptive or maladaptive. This experimental study investigated the prevalence of coping strategies and its changes on introduction of stress management techniques training program for six weeks daily among nursing students. The study on comparison between pre-test and post-test coping strategies observed that in experimental group, there is significant increase in usage of coping strategies of post-test like positive interpretation (p=0.025), Mental disengagement (p=0.013), Focus on end (p=0.045), denial (p=0.006), Behavioural disengagement (p=0.005), use of emotional social support (p=0.04) and acceptance (p=0.04). There is no significant increase in the usage of coping strategies like use of instrumental social support, active coping, religious coping, humor, restraint, substance use, suppression of competing activities and planning. On Comparison between post-test coping strategies between Experimental and Control groups it was found that there is significant difference in usage of coping strategies during post-test like positive interpretation (p=0.01), mental disengagement (p=0.03), denial (p=0.007), religious coping(p=0.001) and behaviour disengagement (p=0.002). There is no significant difference in coping strategies like focus on end (p=0.10), use of instrumental social support (p=0.18), active coping (p=0.02), humour (p=0.33), restraint (p=0.29), use of emotional social support (p=0.09), substance use (p=0.13), acceptance (p=0.30), suppression of competing activities (p=0.15) and planning (0.46). As many coping strategies were adapted by nursing students after training on stress management techniques, this stress management techniques training program was effective.