Comparing anger, anger expression, life stress and social support between Korean female nursing and general university students.

AIMS: To compare anger, anger expression, life stress and social support among female students at a nursing university and a general university and to examine factors affecting anger in each group.

BACKGROUND: University students typically experience constant stress resulting from factors like academic requirements, personal relationships and career decisions; this tends to promote anger. Particularly, nursing students' anger can negatively affect the quality of care that they provide, and also their mental health. Therefore, anger management of nursing students is very important in the training and development of future nurses. Nursing education needs to confirm factors associated with anger of nursing students compared with general university students to develop specific intervention programs for decreasing their anger levels.

DESIGN: A descriptive, cross-sectional design was used.

METHODS: Participants were 286 female students (146 from a nursing university and 140 from a general university); they completed self-report surveys examining anger, anger expression, life stress and social support. A stepwise multiple regression analysis was done to identify factors affecting anger. Data were collected from 15 May-10 June 2016.

RESULTS/FINDINGS: In the stepwise multiple regression analysis, we entered three anger expression factors, eight life stress factors and social support as explanatory variables; factors affecting anger among nursing students were anger-out and same-sex peer relationship stress. In general university students, anger-out, anger-control and anger-in were identified as factors affecting anger.

CONCLUSION: Becoming proficient in beneficial anger expression techniques and reducing stress from same-sex peer relationships will reduce anger among female nursing students.