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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.