The Tapping Evidence Base
Test Anxiety & Students · Burnout & Work Stress

Improving undergraduate nursing student stress: Tapping to success in academia with emotional freedom techniques

Cyr, J. · Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering · 2022

Outcome study👥 7 participantsPreliminary✓ Source-checked📍 United States
In plain English. Seven stressed-out nursing students did four half-hour tapping sessions online, one a week for a month. Their stress scores fell by nearly ten points on a standard scale, and every one of them said they planned to keep using EFT on their own afterward. It's a tiny study with no comparison group, so treat it as an early signal rather than proof.

What they found

7
people took part

Mean Perceived Stress Scale scores dropped from 23.29 (SD 5.59) to 13.29 (SD 8.22) after four weekly 30-minute virtual EFT sessions, a statistically significant decrease.

How the study worked

Who took partundergraduate nursing students (n=7)
What they didParticipants received tapping and were measured before and after, without a separate comparison group.
Measured withPerceived Stress Scale (PSS), Subjective Units of Distress (SUD)

💡 Where this could help

If findings like these hold up in larger trials, the promise is simple: a low-cost, self-administered tool that could reach people struggling with test anxiety & students who can't easily access traditional care — at home, between appointments, or where there aren't enough clinicians to go around.

🔬 What to study next

The natural next step: a head-to-head trial against an established treatment like CBT, and a larger sample to confirm the effect.

The full record

DesignOutcome study
Participants7 people
Populationundergraduate nursing students
Outcome measuresPerceived Stress Scale (PSS), Subjective Units of Distress (SUD)
JournalDissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering
Year2022
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
MethodEFT / tapping
Publication typeDissertation
Verification✓ Confirmed against the primary source

Read the original study →

Cite this study

APA

Cyr, J. (2022). Improving undergraduate nursing student stress: Tapping to success in academia with emotional freedom techniques. Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering.

This record is part of the Tapping Evidence Base — an openly-sourced, fully-referenced directory of the research on EFT/tapping. Explore more studies on Test Anxiety & Students · Burnout & Work Stress

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THE TAPPING EVIDENCE BASE Test Anxiety & Students 7 participants WHAT THEY FOUND Mean Perceived Stress Scale scores droppedfrom 23.29 (SD 5.59) to 13.29 (SD 8.22)after four weekly 30-minute… Outcome study · 7 participants Cyr · 2022 · evidence.thetappingsolution.com