Evaluation of meditation and reported test anxiety in bachelor of science nursing students

Abstract

Anxiety is a growing concern among college students and often surrounds the required testing that assesses a student’s knowledge and ability to apply this knowledge to situations in nursing. If nursing students’ anxiety is not addressed, this may impact their ability to perform well on exams and be successful in their nursing program. Research supports the idea that anxiety reduction strategies can lower levels of test anxiety for those in nursing programs. The purpose of this study was to assess the level of test anxiety of students in a pre-licensure Bachelor of Science in Nursing program and to examine the use of a brief meditation video on students’ anxiety levels. A pre-test/post-test design was utilized to assess the test anxiety levels of sophomore and senior nursing students at the beginning of the semester and before their first and second exams. The results of this study found that 79.8% of the students (n = 52) reported a moderate to an extremely high level of test anxiety. In addition, there was a statistically significant (p < .000) reduction in anxiety levels at the first and second exams after implementing the meditation video compared to scores at the beginning of the semester. Based on these findings, nursing programs should consider including meditation as a strategy to reduce test anxiety in students. The program was cost-effective and would be easy to implement into a nursing program’s curriculum.