EFT and Resilience in Nursing Students

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) application on stress, anxiety, and sleep quality in nursing students. The nursing education process can cause high levels of psychological and physiological stress in students due to many factors such as a heavy theoretical knowledge load, clinical practice stress, exam anxiety, and shift work. This situation results in increased anxiety and impaired sleep quality, thereby negatively affecting students' academic performance, clinical skills, and overall well-being. In this context, the study aims to evaluate whether EFT, as a complementary method, is effective in reducing stress and anxiety levels in nursing students, as well as improving sleep quality. It is believed that the results of this research will contribute to the development of alternative approaches that support psychological well-being in nursing education and will provide evidence-based data on the integration of EFT into educational programs. Existing studies on EFT applications for nursing students show promising results in reducing exam/academic anxiety and general stress levels; for example, some pre-post and small controlled studies have reported decreases in both stress and exam anxiety (Patterson, 2016; Vural, 2019). However, these studies have limitations such as sample size, use of comparison groups, and lack of long-term follow-up; therefore, the number of RCT (randomized controlled trial) studies with strong methodological design in the nursing student population is still limited. Sleep quality is a strong determinant of both cognitive functioning and mood in students; when stress and anxiety levels are impaired, sleep quality can deteriorate, and conversely, improved sleep can contribute to a reduction in psychological symptoms. Studies investigating the direct effect of EFT on sleep quality are also increasing: studies conducted in various age groups and clinical populations report that EFT can improve sleep parameters or provide subjective sleep quality improvement, while some studies report mixed effect sizes or heterogeneous results in group comparisons (Souilm et al., 2022; Kalroozi et al., 2022; Özcan, 2025).