Analysis of mental health status and its related factors of nursing school students in Wenzhou

Objective To assess the psychological health status among nursing school students and to determine the influencing factors.Methods A total of 720 students in a nursing school were randomly selected and their psychological health were surveyed by using Symptom Checklist 90(SCL-90),the scale of adolescent life events(ASLEC) and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire(EPQ).Results Our analysis of SCL-90 revealed that the overall average score and scores of some of the factors as obsession,depression,anxiety,terror and psychotic problem were significantly higher compared to the national norms(t=5.383,10.341,4.244,7.226,8.010,7.147,P0.001).Their mental health statuses were greatly influenced by their professional satisfaction,education and family financial situation(order of importance 0.332,0.265,0.226).The analysis also showed that each factor score on SCL-90 was not only positively correlated with that on ASLEC(P0.01),but also with EPQ total score,and score of EPQ-N and EPQ-P(P0.05 or P0.01),whereas each of them was negatively correlated with that of EPQ-E(except for somatization,hostility,others) and EPQ-L(P0.05 or P0.01).Conclusions The overall psychological health among nursing school students is poor.Professional satisfaction,education,family income,life events and personality are major factors which influence their mental health.