PURPOSE The purpose of the study was to identify levels of anxiety, stress hormone, lymphocytes, and neutrophils of the nursing students before an examination and to examine effects of social support on those variables related to taking examinations. METHODS Thirty eight healthy nursing students participated. They completed the questionnaire including state anxiety, test anxiety (VAS scale) and social support two weeks before the exam and again just before the exam. Simultaneously, a venous sample for ACTH, cortisol, lymphocytes & neutrophils count was drawn by a trained nurse. Descriptive statistics, paired t-test, student t-test, and Pearson's correlation with SPSS/WIN 14.0 were used to analyze the data. RESULTS Test anxiety scores and cortisol level on the exam day showed a significant increment compared with those on the non-exam day. The participants with higher levels of total social support scores showed significantly lower state anxiety on the exam day than those with lower levels of total social support scores. CONCLUSION These data indicate a possible alteration in cortisol responsiveness to academic stress in nursing students. Social support would play an important role in modulation of academic stress.
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