In recent years, sudden disasters are occurring frequently, resulting in inestimable casualties and losses. Hence, knowing what personality traits are suitable for stressful works is of vital importance for selecting applicable nurses for disaster relief operation, and helping the nursing students to have a clearer career orientation when choosing the specialty direction. Stress response is divided into psychological response and physiological response. This study focused on the process of physiological response and evaluated the psychological stress intensity through monitoring physiological indexes related to the autonomic nervous system during the stress process.

Method: The experimental subjects were 16 nursing students. In the monitoring experiment, three kinds of pressures were set, including time limitation, threat assessment, and task- interference. The physiological indexes under the resting state of the experimental subjects were recorded as the resting period group (RT). Then, the nursing students performed the operation without setting the pressure condition, called the baseline period group (BL). The experimenter would record all important time nodes. The physiological indexes recorded under the three pressures were the time stress group (TS), the assessment stress group (AS), and the task-interference stress group (INS).

There was no statistically significant difference in heart rate and skin temperature between RT and BL, but there was a statistically significant difference in skin resistance. The heart rate and skin temperature in the stress phase were significantly higher than those in RT and BL. According to the analysis of HRV, the difference between RT and BL has no statistical significance.

Models can eliminate the interference of the operation itself to the recording of physiological signals. The time-stress condition caused a more psychological-stress response in nursing students than assessment and task interference. The pressure source was set up effectively and the stress model was established successfully.