Abstract
Subjective feeling of fatigue (SFF) associated with the clinical practice of nursing students was investigated in 15 volunteers who were juniors in the Department of Nursing, Faculty of Education, Kumamoto University. The most frequent SFF was physical fatigue (PF) followed by mental fatigue (MF) and then neurosensory fatigue (NSF) ; their incidences per practice day were 1.0, 0.5 and 0.4, respectively. Common complaints of PF were "general weakness," "weakness in the legs," "eye strain" and "tendency to lie down for a rest." For MF, the complains were "inconstant thinking," "emotional instability," "lack of concentration," "mistakes in performance" and "impatience." For NSF, students cited "headache," "lower backache," "dizziness" and "lack of energy." Out of 15 subjects, 11 (73.3%) showed a pattern of PF>MF>NSF, three a pattern of PF>NSF>MF, and one a pattern of MF>PF>NSF. The pattern and frequency of SFF in the first period (1st-3rd week) and the last period (7th-9th week) of the clinical practice were similar, whereas those in the middle period (4th-6th week) were quite different. This study shows that nursing students experience many forms of SFF in their clinical practice and that SFF varies with the individual and the period of clinical practice. PF is the most frequent in the first and last periods, and MF in the middle period.
