The purpose of this study was to develop a stress measurement scale for Korean nursing students.

Sixty preliminary items were selected by classifying 229 basic items extracted via literature review and Q-sorting method. In order to verify the reliability and validity of the preliminary instrument, data were collected from 617 nursing students in 2 colleges of nursing in Korea.

As a result of the item analysis, 58 items were selected. They consisted of 2 types of stress which were college-based stress (38 items) and clinical-based stress (20 items). Ten factors in college-based stress and four factors in clinical-based stress were extracted by factor analysis, and each had a total variance of 63.01%, and 64.93%. Cronbach's Alpha of those 58 items were .937 in college-based stress and .922 in clinical-based stress, which was high.

This paper is meaningful in a way that it has developed a tool capable of measuring stress for nursing students, which reflects the characteristics of our country. It is recommended for further study to re-verify the relevance and stability of this measurement.