The influence of socio-demographic factors, resilience and stress reducing activities on academic outcomes of undergraduate nursing students: A cross-sectional research study

Background: Nursing students who stop their education before obtaining their degree (dropout) is a common problem. Scientific studies on factors influencing academic outcomes amongst nursing students are sparse and difficult to transfer to undergraduate nursing students.

Objectives: The objective of the present study was to explore in undergraduate nursing students the influence of socio-demographic factors, resilience and stress reducing activities on the academic outcomes: intention to leave, academic success and dropout.

Design: A cross-sectional design was used.

Participants/setting: 554 participants form 6 nursing colleges in the Antwerp region in Belgium were included.

Methods: Data were collected using SurveyMonkey®. In a second phase, these data were linked to the academic outcomes from the school administration.

Results: Lower resilience, more destructive and less positive stress reducing activities, having committed a suicide attempt in the past, studying in a densely populated area and starting as a regular student was significantly influenced with higher intentions to leave. Higher resilience significantly predicted academic success. Finally, students that dropped out showed a significantly lower resilience.

Conclusion: Resilience was the only factor that significantly predicted the three academic outcomes: intention to leave, academic success and dropout. Known predictors of academic outcomes such as young age, gender, previous education, nationality and caring for family members were not confirmed in this study. To study in depth dropout within the undergraduate nursing course, conducting a cohort study might be recommended.