Evaluation of a Brief Mindfulness Intervention on Examination Anxiety and Stress

Abstract

Background: Nursing students report increasing levels of stress and anxiety related to academic performance. Mindfulness programs have been found to reduce stress, yet such programs have been identified as a time-burden for students. This study evaluated the integration of a brief preexamination mindfulness reflective intervention for nursing students. Perceived stress, anxiety, resilience, and acceptability were evaluated. Method: A mixed-methods experimental design with random assignment was used. Forty-nine nursing students were randomized to either an intervention group ( N = 25) who participated in the brief preexamination mindfulness intervention or a control group ( N = 24) who took their examinations without any intervention. Self-report tools measured stress, resilience, and mindfulness. Qualitative responses were collected. Results: Outcomes revealed decreased feelings of helplessness and anxiety in the intervention group. Although students had positive views of mindfulness, barriers were indicated. Conclusion: Brief preexamination mindfulness interventions provide students with anxiety-reducing options. [ J Nurs Educ . 2021;60(11):625–628.]

Evaluation of meditation and reported test anxiety in bachelor of science nursing students

“…Research studies support that anxiety in college students is prevalent. [2,8,14] Of particular interest to this study was test anxiety. Test anxiety is a problem that is affecting millions of students throughout the world and is an undesirable emotional reaction.…”

“…Many studies have implemented a variety of strategies such as aromatherapy, music, pet therapy, guided imagery, and relaxation to reduce anxiety in nursing students. [1,[6][7][8][9]14] The purpose of this study was to find an easy, inexpensive way to help students reduce their anxiety before nursing exams. A brief 5-minute meditation video was utilized in the classroom with nursing students.…”

The Impact of Resilience Interventions on University Students’ Mental Health and Well-Being: A Systematic Review

“…Eight studies implemented a non-randomised controlled trial (NRCT) study design [53,58,62,77,79,80,82,87]. Seventeen studies employed a pre-post without control group study design [48,50,51,59,60,[64][65][66][68][69][70]83,84,86,88,89,91], and twenty-two studies adopted a randomised controlled trial (RCT) study design [45][46][47]49,52,[54][55][56][57]61,63,67,[71][72][73][74][75][76]78,81,85,90].…”

“…Skills-based training, psychoeducation, coaching, and mindfulness were the four resilience intervention categories used to group the studies in this systematic review. The most common type of intervention was mindfulness (n = 18) [47,49,53 Across all intervention types, there was a range of modes of delivery, although online interventions were more frequent in recent studies, as may be expected due to COVID and advances in technology. For skills-based interventions, nine used face-to-face delivery [45,50,63,[74][75][76]78,80,82] and five used online delivery [51,52,59,66,68].…”

“…Most of the studies recruited undergraduate students (n = 38) [45][46][47][49][50][51][53][54][55][56][57]59,[61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69]71,72,[74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82]84,85,87,88,90,91]. Only four studies recruited graduate students [48,58,69,83] and a subset did not specify, but all those not specifying focused on medical students [60,70,73,86,89]; as such, the level may not have been reported as medical degrees can include a typical undergraduate degree within the higher medical degree.…”