Nursing students' perceived anxiety and heart rate variability in mock skill competency assessment.

Background: Skill competency assessments induce stress and anxiety and may affect nursing student performance. Little is known about stress and perceived anxiety levels and their relationship in the mock skill competency assessment.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted to examine the stress levels (as assessed by heart rate variability, HRV) and perceived anxiety before, during and after the mock skill competency assessment, and to explore their relationships to performance in a total of ninety first-year undergraduate nursing students.