What are student nurse’s experiences and perceptions of social media activity within their peer groups and its effect on their wellbeing?

This study explores student nurse’s experiences and perceptions of social media activity within their peer groups and its effect on their wellbeing, focusing on Social Networking Sites (SNS). Student nurses are known to experience higher levels of stress than many other undergraduate students because in addition to the usual stressors around university and studying student nurses also must deal with the extra stressors associated with working within healthcare during clinical placements. Also, previous research has shown SNS activity is known to affect student nurse wellbeing, so it was important to establish the role SNS activity within student nurse peer groups played in relieving or exacerbating wellbeing for this student group.The study took a two-staged approach to data collection; the first stage was a scoping exercise with one hundred and twenty-two participants over four sessions, which used Nominal Group Techniques (NGT) to collect as many viewpoints as possible to prompt the story telling in stage two of the data collection. Stage two of the data collection consisted of narrative interviews with a sample of fourteen student nurses and utilised virtual techniques to conduct the interviews due to COVID 19 restrictions. Thematic analysis of the interview transcripts uncovered four main themes: information sharing; amplifiers; personas and group formation.The research found that there are positive effects of SNS activity within student nurse peer groups, including information sharing and support. However, the research also highlighted several areas where SNS activity in student nurse peer groups negatively affected student nurse wellbeing, particularly areas such as the sharing of inaccurate information, negative social comparison, imposter syndrome, social media fatigue, fear of missing out, adoption of maladaptive coping strategies and feeling left out of SNS groups. These findings are helpful in both establishing the role SNS activity plays in affecting student nurse’s ability to cope effectively with the demands of the programme and in offering some practical solutions to guide universities in how best to support student nurses in this area. This university support should include building meaningful education around effective use of SNS into the curriculum, working with student nurses employing techniques to build a sense of community and belonging and ensuring effective support mechanisms such as restorative supervision are in place to build resilience in this student group.