Perfectionism, Self-Compassion and Depressive Symptoms among Nursing Students

Background: Perfectionism plays an important role in nursing students’ adjustment to
training in the nursing profession. Self-compassion is among the characteristics that nursing
students need to have to be empathetic with themselves and with patients. Perfectionistic students
develop a strict thinking that hinders a compassionate attitude towards oneself causing greater
depressive symptoms. Aimed to: Assess perfectionism, self-compassion and depressive
symptoms among nursing students. Design: Descriptive design was used. Setting: The present
study was done at the Technical Institute of Nursing Zagazig University. Subjects and
methods: A stratified sample was used in the current study, which composed of 280 nursing
students. Tools of data collection: The first tool composed of two parts: socio-demographic data
sheet, and Hewitt and Flett's multidimensional perfectionism scale. The second tool was the
Neff’s Self-Compassion Scale, and the third tool was beck depression inventory scale (BDI-II).
Results: nearly all of the students had a high level of perfectionism, nearly three qurater of
nursing students had a moderate level of self-compassion. Furthermore, the study revealed that
statistically significant weak to moderate negative correlations were demonstrated between the
scores of students` self-compassion from one side and each of socially-prescribed perfectionism
and depressive symptom scores. Conclusions: The majority of nursing students had a high level
of perfectionism, and moderate level of self-compassion. Additionally, socially-prescribed
perfectionism was an independent negative predictor of self-compassion, and self-compassion
was an independent negative predictor of depressive symptoms among nursing students.
Recommendation: Effective self-compassion interventions could be targeted to students who
have perfectionistic thoughts to increase the level of kindness, and thus decrease perfectionistic
thoughts. Experimental study is suggested to manage perfectionism with nursing students.