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31.01.19

Throughout nursing school, you will likely have to do practical exams, or skills assessments. These types of exams help our instructors to gauge how you’re progressing through your skills like assessments, medication administration, injections, and others. In my program, we have one practical skills assessment per semester, and in my first semester we had two; one for a midterm and one for a final.

Even though these types of assessments are important, they can definitely be very stressful. When I had my first one in semester one, I was so so so nervous, I felt like I was going to cry the entire time. I even told my instructor that when I walked into the room. It’s totally normal to be nervous about skills assessments. Everyone I’ve talked to is. You’re definitely not alone.

Skills assessments don’t personally trigger my anxiety, I just get “normal person nervous”. One of the reasons I don’t get more anxious is because I have experience with practical exams. I have done a lot of them with my experience in first aid, paramedicine, and the volunteer things that I do. For a lot of people that are struggling right now, saying that confidence will come with time isn’t that helpful. I just want to say that you will get more comfortable and it will get easier. 

One thing that I know a lot of people struggle with in skills assessments is having to narrate everything you’re thinking and doing. This is one of those things where the answer really is just practice. When you’re practicing in class or at home, always narrate what you’re doing and what you’re thinking, even if it’s just to your cat or to yourself or something.

Another thing to do if you are getting anxious about your skills assessment, is imagine and write down the absolute worst case scenario of what could happen. Then write down the absolute best case scenario of what could happen. Thirdly, write down what is most likely to happen. Physically dispose of and destroy the best and worst case scenarios. Tear it up, burn it, whatever and get rid of it. This can help you get those worst case scenarios out of your mind. Hold onto that “most likely to” scenario and keep that in your mind to calm yourself down and ground yourself.

Grounding techniques:

grounding techniques

mental grounding techniques

physical grounding techniques

soothing grounding techniques

Some more anxiety resources:

a breathing techniques video

information about panic attacks

some anxiety management techniques

anxiety help guide

coping with panic attacks