Reliability and repeatability of the instrument for the assessment of stress in nursing students (ASNS)

Abstract

Background and objectives: Stress in nursing students is a very common experience, especially when they face clinical practice. The aims of this study were to perform a transcultural adaptation and to examine the reliability and repeatability of the Instrument for the Assessment of Stress in Nursing Students for a Spanish population. Methods: A test-retest analysis was carried out in two face-to-face sessions with the students with a lapse of 10 days between the two sessions. A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out between the months of May and June 2018. Sixtyfour nursing students were recruited with a consecutive sampling method that targeted individuals in the freshman class. Results: A good internal consistency was shown for the total score (α = 0.8861) and for each of the six domains. The test-retest reliability, using the Wilcoxon paired test, was not significant, indicating no differences between the total scores or the domain scores (p ≥ 0.05). Finally, Bland and Altman plots of visual distributions did not show differences between the total scores and the domain scores. Conclusion: The Instrument for the Assessment of Stress in Nursing Students was shown to be a reliable tool for measuring stress factors among Spanish nursing students.