Exploration of the relationship between acculturation and role stress in nursing students and new graduate nurses

Nursing students and new graduate nurses experience a great deal of role stress and acculturation issues may compound that stress. The goal of this secondary analysis was to assess the relationship between acculturation levels of student nurses and their role stress experienced in nursing school and in their first two years in professional practice. This study was a longitudinal, repeated measures design that explored role stress and acculturation in a cohort of student nurses over the course of four years. Results revealed moderate role stress in student nurses with correlations between acculturation and clinical stress as measured by the Student Nurse Stress Index (SNSI). Clinical role stress was significantly correlated with acculturation on all five student measurements. Mild/occasional stress was detected in new graduate nurses. A single correlation was found between new graduate nurses' role stress and discrimination as measured by the Expanded Nursing Stress Scale (ENSS). The ENSS may not be well-suited to detect role stress in new graduate nurses.