Anxiety in nursing academics: Analysis by the hospital scale of anxiety and depression

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze the presence of anxiety in nursing students through the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. This is a cross-sectional, descriptive study developed at a university in the interior of Northeast Brazil. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics with the help of the Statistical Package for Social Science version 22.0 for Windows software, presented in tables and discussed based on the literature relevant to the topic. The research had 106 participants, with a predominance of single women, with an average age of 21.9 ± 3.7 years, monthly family income of one minimum wage, coming from the urban area, with a family nucleus composed of three to five members. The presence of anxiety, investigated by the application of the scale, points to the possible presence of anxiety in more than half of the participating nursing students, with a higher presence of anxious symptoms in students in the fifth period. It is concluded, therefore, that the prevalence of anxiety in participating nursing students may be related to the increasing complexity of the course and should be the objective of further research in the future.