Background: Nursing students have to deal with assignments, presentations, continuous assessment tests, theoretical exams, and clinical skills in a limited time frame. When the burden increases beyond the limit of students, stress increases among them. Objective: To determine the coping strategies and factors that are associated with stress among undergraduate students.

Methodology: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted from April to June 2013, with a sample size of 253 using simple random sampling technique. Two valid and reliable questionnaires were used for data collection; Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) for the factors and level of stress, while coping behavior inventory was used for coping strategies among the respondents. The study was approved by ethical review committee while analysis was performed as descriptive and inferential statistics through SPSS 20.

Results: The total number of participants was 253, where the number of male students was higher (86.2%), while the mean age of the participants was (21.4 ± 2.2), and majority of the students’ academic performance was good (69.6%). "Stress from assignment and workload (2.44 ± 0.64)", followed by "stress from the environment" (2.34 ± 0.68), and "stress from taking care of patients (2.16 ± 0.61) are the leading factors that contributes to the level of stress among undergraduate students. “Stay optimistic” (2.49 ± 0.69), followed by transference (2.45 ± 0.75), and problem solving (2.36 ± 0.59) are the coping strategies used by students to reduce level of stress.

Conclusion: The study concluded that majority of undergraduates was suffering from moderate stress, and assignment and workload are the main reason that contributes to their stress and stay optimistic is most common coping strategies used by students. Furthermore, Stress is strong positively correlated with coping strategies, while weakly positive correlated with age.

Keywords: Stress, clinical practice, academic performance, nursing education, coping style.