Life skills training program on perceived stress level of professional undergraduate fresher students: A cross-sectional study

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of a Life Skills Training program on the perceived stress levels of professional fresher undergraduate students and to examine associations between stress levels and selected demographic variables. Methodology: This pre-experimental, one-group pre-test-post-test study included a sample of 60 first-year undergraduate nursing students exhibiting stress (selected from an initial screening of 100 students) at Applied Medical Science College. Participants completed the Perceived Stress Scale (30 items) before and after attending 14 sessions (3 hours each) of the Life Skills Training program covering ten core life skills. The intervention was delivered over 15 consecutive working days. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and paired t-tests. Results: Pre-intervention, 90% of participants exhibited moderate stress and 3.3% severe stress. Post-intervention, 91.6% showed only mild stress and 8.4% moderate stress, with no cases of severe stress. The mean stress score decreased significantly from 83.03±12.82 to 48.76±11.73, with a t-value of 17.497 (p<0.05). Domain-specific improvements were observed in physical (53.16% to 32.62%), emotional (44.56% to 25.06%), social (33.48% to 19.22%), cognitive (25.02% to 14.83%), and spiritual (10.18% to 5.81%) aspects. No significant associations were found between stress levels and demographic variables. Conclusion: The Life Skills Training program significantly reduced perceived stress levels among first-year professional students across all stress domains. These findings suggest that integrating Life Skills Training programs into university curricula could effectively support student mental health and enhance coping mechanisms during the critical transition to higher education.