Background A higher number of stressors with negative health consequences have been addressed among nursing professionals. Nursing students face various stressors such as academic, clinical and personal, social stressors at work during their training period and may also influence their perceptions of stress on their future work. The release of cortisol has been recognized as an important response under physiological stress. Salivary cortisol has the advantages of noninvasive and high correlated with serum levels that is suit for large scale epidemiological study. Aims This study aimed to examine the relationships among work-related stress, depression and saliva cortisol levels on nursing students. Methods This cross-sectional study recruited 157 nursing students who are intern for more than 4 months from a collage located in southern Taiwan. Self-administrative questionnaire with personal characteristics, stress and depression scale were delivered at the time when they finish the training. Saliva samples were also collected and cortisol levels were analyzed by using enzyme immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results Lack of interests on nurse, satisfaction of the arrangement of training clinics and hospitals, training performance, economic resources and gender were significantly associated with the score of stresses. Twenty students with clinical signs of depression" which comprised 12.5% of the total students, have significantly higher scores of stress than those without signs of depression ( P = 0.000 ). The levels of salivary cortisol were not correlated with the scores of stress and depression in our study. Further study is needed to examine the suitability of using salivary cortisol as a work stress induced biological indicator in cross-sectional study. Conclusions Our findings suggested school should provide consulting service to those students especially before and during internship to improve the conception of stress and depression among nursing students.
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