In 2005 when Louisiana took two devastating hits from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, residents in affected communities felt the physical and emotional strain of losing everything they owned.
A study conducted by two nursing faculty members three months after Katrina and two months after Rita shows nursing students at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette were no different emotionally. The pair will present the findings to the prestigious World Psychiatric Association’s International Congress in Australia in late November.
Drs. Sudha Patel and Ardith Sudduth, both assistant professors in the College of Nursing and Allied Health Professions, found that their students were having trouble concentrating and making decisions following these natural disasters.
“ We were concerned about the effect of stress on nursing students’ learning after these two hurricanes,” said Patel.
The study’s purpose was to make faculty aware of stress experienced by students and to assist faculty in making decisions about curricular adjustments to help students meet their learning needs.
The study set out to answer three questions: How much stress have students experienced as a result of hurricanes Katrina and Rita? What behaviors are students reporting as a result of the impact of the hurricanes? and What coping strategies were students using to deal with stress following the hurricanes? The pair polled 447 nursing students.
“ We found that all of the students expressed stress levels that were significantly elevated,” said Sudduth. “Some had homes that were destroyed. Others had extended family living with them. And still, even if you didn’t live in the impacted areas, you were affected. In the Lafayette community, more people were here because of evacuations, making traffic heavier and grocery store lines longer.”
All of this contributed to higher stress levels for students.
“ Our findings showed that student stressors included losing their homes, their valuables, visitors boarding in their home for long periods of time and for some, staying in shelters themselves,” said Patel.
In addition, findings showed that the older the students were, the more they thought about the disasters. “Some students told about the death of family during and immediately after the hurricanes and many talked about the stress of dealing with losses,” said Patel.
What seemed to help students cope the most was talking with friends and family and taking time for themselves. Some even reported that participating in the study was a help while others noted their work at local shelters was a stress reliever.
Those who reported getting less support from friends and family were more likely to turn to alcohol, according to the study.
“ We realized that our students were feeling the effects of the hurricanes and that we could help alleviate some of their stressors,” said Sudduth. “We encouraged them to talk with friends and family and also told them about free resources on campus like counseling. We wanted them to take advantage of these offerings so their studies wouldn’t suffer.”
In addition to being presented to the World Psychiatric Association’s International Congress, the study findings will also serve as a reference should other natural disasters happen. “Maybe we can help students by being even more prepared for these stressors should something happen in the future,” said Patel.