Assessing the Anxiety Level in Nursing Students at the Commencement of their Academic Year

Introduction: Anxiety is a subjective response that occurs when a person experiences a threat to their well-being. Each new academic year brings challenges (i.e., anxiety) and new situations for the students, which may cause anxiety in a majority of the students, especially for those enrolled in medical or paramedical courses, due to the stressful working environment. Female students are more prone to anxiety disorders. Anxiety may impair learning and performance. Hence, this study aimed to evaluate the anxiety level among nursing students of Kirkuk University, Iraq, at the commencement of their new academic year.

Methods: In this descriptive study, data were collected by Beck’s anxiety inventory scale. A stratified random sampling was performed, which included both male and female students (100 students), with 25 students from each stage. The data were analyzed by SPSS 22 software using descriptive methods.

Results: The findings of this study revealed that the second and the third stages reported higher anxiety levels (64 and 40%, respectively) than the first and fourth stages (32 and 35%, respectively). The female students reported higher anxiety levels (44% for mild level, 50% for moderate level, and 2.38% for severe level) than the male students (37.5% for mild level, 31.25% for moderate level, and no frequency for the severe level).

Conclusions: Based on the study results, we conclude that high anxiety levels were reported by the second and third stages, and that these levels were higher in females. Further studies are recommended to explore the anxiety factors in students and to find appropriate measures to reduce their anxiety.