Descriptive Study to Assess the Factors Affecting Harmony of Body, Mind and Spirit of Students Undergoing BSc Nursing Course in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Lucknow

Background: Nursing is a patient care centred profession that is much more challenging and stressful job than many other profession. The World health Organisation (WHO) has estimated that stress related disorders will be one of the leading causes of disability by the year 2020. Nursing schools are now recognised as a stressful environment that often exert a negative effect on the academic performance and psychological well-being of the students1.Method: A descriptive study was conducted with the objectives to assess the factors affecting harmony of body, mind and spirit among nursing students and to find the association of these factors with socio-demographic variables. A total of 60 nursing students as samples were selected by two way sampling technique and data was collected using structured questionnaire comprising three sections. Results: The study revealed that 77% of students were in moderate level of harmony with body and 57% were in moderate level of harmony of mind and spirit. The finding of study revealed that leg pain (65%) was the most prevalent health problem followed by inadequate sleep (80%). Other health problems encountered by students were backache(40%), headache(10%),irregular periods(21.7%),constipation(26.6%) and weight changes(43%).Factors which affected their harmony of mind were not having adequate time for self (88.3%), feeling of health risk due to nursing profession(73.3%), considering hostel life stressful (48.3%) and (38.3%) felt that they were always stressed out. It was also found that 66.7% of respondents felt that their expectations of joining nursing were being fulfilled while 33.3% expressed desire to go abroad. None of the respondents had picked up any kind of vices to cope with the stressful situation and 98% started doing physical exercises after joining nursing. Conclusion: Positive and negative aspects of factors affecting harmony of nursing students should be balanced.