Psychological well-being in nursing students: relationship with gender and age

Abstract

Psychological well-being is a multidimensional concept that includes social, subjective, and psychological dimensions and emphasises people's potential and ability to achieve well-being. The aim of this research was to assess the level of psychological well-being in students attending the Nursing Degree Course at a university in the north of the country, as well as its relationship with gender and age. The present research is a quantitative, cross-sectional and correlational study, with a non-probabilistic sample for convenience, consisting of 203 students attending the Nursing Degree Course in 2022. Data was collected through a questionnaire consisting of questions to characterise the students and the General Psychological Well-Being Questionnaire, adapted and validated for Portuguese students. It consists of six items, answered on a Likert-type scale, with five alternative answers. The score ranges from zero to thirty, and the higher the score, the higher the level of psychological well-being. It was found that 77.8% of the students were female, and 59.1% were over 20 years old. The students showed psychological well-being, with an average score of 16.8. A statistically significant relationship was only found between item 2, "How much energy or vitality did you feel?", with a higher score for males. This study made it possible to design a community intervention project aiming to enable students to adopt coping strategies that promote psychological well-being, which are essential for ensuring the developmental processes inherent in the life cycle they are going through.