بررسی رابطه بین سلامت روان و ابتلا به افسردگی و استرس درک شده بین دانشجویان پرستاری کره The Relationship of Spiritual Well-Being and Involvement with Depression and Perceived Stress in Korean Nursing Students

Korean nursing students can face heavy stress from academic load, clinical practice, license examination, and concern for employment. Excessive stress cause student difficulty in academic performance and adaption for the clinical circumstance needed for interpersonal relationship (Hill & Pargament, 2003), and the most frequently reported obstacle to academic performance in stress, which outranks viral infections, sleep disturbances, concerns about family members and friends, and relationship problems (American College Association, 2003, 2009). Moreover, previous research found the evidence indicating that an association exists between the experience of stress and subsequent risk major depressive episodes in adults (Hammen, 2005; Kendler, Karkowski, & Prescott, 1999; Kessler, 1997). Depression can be related to negative psychosocial dimension according to previous researches. For example, signs and symptoms of depression include weight loss, fatigue, insomnia, feeling of helplessness, hopelessness and guilt (Wilson et al., 2006). According to a research, depression of Korean college students is serious, and depression in college is worse than that of middle/high school students (Lee, 2004). In 2012, 49.5% of Korean adolescence experienced heavy stress, 30.5% felt depressed more than 2 weeks within the last year, 18.3% seriously considered attempting suicide, and 4.1% actually attempted suicide at least once during the previous school year (Korean Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 2012). Thus, the students and their social support systems should be aware of stress and depression management to address social issues and ensure a successful college life. Meanwhile, other research has supported that a protective association exists between religiosity or spirituality and negative health outcomes among young people (Cotton et al., 2006). A recent study has suggested that spirituality can be beneficial for the quality of life and well-being for physical and mental health (Sesana, 2006). However, limited research has explored the relationship between mental health and religiosity or spirituality and most research related to health measures religiosity more than spirituality (Williams & Sternthal, 2007). In fact, Spiritual Well- Being (SWB) or spirituality, abstract concept was conceptualized by Paloutzian and Ellision (1982), is not defined by religious and cultural boundaries. Concretely, spirituality is not the same as religion; one’s spirituality may be expressed through religion, and religion may one’s source of SWB (Fehring et al., 1997; Mauk & Schmidt, 2004). The idea that health includes physical, emotional, psychosocial, environmental, social, and spiritual components is not strange any more. However, systemic reviews of the empirical literature point that religion and spirituality represent understudied variables in health-related research (Rew & Wong, 2006). Health promotion has not made an effort to address spiritual health as an important dimension of holistic health as well. In addition, current research supports that nurses have a high regard for spiritual care. However, clinical nurses tend to serve insufficient spiritual care for lack of systemic education about spirituality at nursing school (Baldacchino, 2008; Koh, 2003). Research regarding nurses’ spiritual care in nursing has shown that nurses with higher personal sense of spiritual well-being have more positive attitudes toward spiritual care (Musgrave & McFarlane, 2004; Stranahan, 2001). Consequently, enhancing personal sense of spiritual well-being for nursing students is considered important educational strategy for holistic approach in the future. Therefore, in the present study, Korean nursing students’ spiritual well-being was measured, and identified the relationship with depression and stress to prepare basic data for efficient spiritual educational program. The purpose of this study was fourfold; 1) to examine participants’ spiritual well being, depression, stress; 2) to verify personal characteristics related to specific dimension of SWB (Religious Well-Being: RWB or Existential Well-Being: EWB); 3) to identify the relationship between SWB, depression and perceived stress; 4) whether specific dimension of SWB relate to reduced perceived stress and depression.