Abstract:
A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out among female student 9urses in the
NTS Galle. All 525 female student nurses were included to he study on the advice 9f the
ethical committee and since was feasible to collect information although the calculated
sample size was 422. The female student nurses belonged to r3rd year (200 batch) and 2nd
year (2007 batch). A self administered questionnaire (S Q) collected demographic, socioeconomic characteristics, work and non –work related factors. Assessment of status of
psychological distress was done using i the already validate, General Health Questionnaire30 (GHQ-30) Sinhala version . A third SAQ gathered information on problem -focused
and emotion -focused coping strategies for stress. Data was analyzed using SPSS package
and appropriate statistical tests were applied. The study found that 46.6 percent female
student nurses were psychologically distressed. Among non - work related factors, an
illness or a major injury of female student nurses and illness or a major injury of female
student nurses and . illness/major injury or death of a family member or a close person,
increasing arguments with family members, missing opportunities to meet beloved ones
and financial problems during the past four weeks were significantly associated with
psychological distress ( p0.05) more than 40 percent of student nurses practiced each of
problem-focused coping strategy seldom. Majority of the female student nurses were
frequently practicing the comfort in religion or spiritual beliefs while harmful coping
strategies were practiced by a lower proportion of them
