Background: In December 2019, COVID-19 began to spread rapidly in China and around the world. Due to the impact of the epidemic, baccalaureate nursing students faced challenges such as changing lifestyles, changing learning styles and delaying schoolwork.

Aim: To examine self-perceived anxiety in baccalaureate nursing students and to explore the relationship between the self-perceived anxiety and their grade levels during the epidemic of COVID-19. 

Methods: 

This study used a descriptive and comparative design with quantitative approach. About 500 nursing students were invited to fill out the questionnaire which included the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). The IBM SPSS Statistical version 24.0 was used to conduct data analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize demographic characteristics. The ANOVA analysis and Non-parametric test analysis were used to analyze the results of the STAI.

Results: 

During the COVID-19 epidemic period, baccalaureate-nursing students had some self-perceived anxiety. The S-AI scores of nursing students in the second and third grades were different. For T-AI scores of nursing students from the first grade to the fourth grade, there was no statistically significant difference.

Conclusions:

There was some anxiety among baccalaureate nursing students during the COVID-19 epidemic period, and the self-perceived anxiety of them had some difference in different grades. Universities need to pay attention to the psychological status of nursing students, give them psychological guidance in time to regulate their emotions actively and effectively.