title: The effect of laughter Yoga on general health among nursing students.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Promotion and provision of individuals' health is one of the bases for development in societies. Students' mental health is very important in each society. Students of medical sciences universities, especially nursing students, are under various stresses in clinical environment, in addition to the stress they experience in theoretical education environment. With regard to the importance of nursing students' general health and considering the various existing strategies to promote general health components, use of complementary treatments is more considered because of their better public acceptance, low costs, and fewer complications. One of the new strategies in this regard is laughter Yoga. The present study was conducted with an aim to define the effect of laughter Yoga on general health among nursing students.
  
  
  METHODS
  This is a quasi-experimental two-group three-step study conducted on 38 male nursing students in the nursing and midwifery school of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in 2012. In the study group, eight 1 h sessions of laughter Yoga were held (two sessions a week), and in the control group, no intervention was conducted. The data of the present study were collected by Goldberg and Hiller's General Health Questionnaire and analyzed by SPSS version 12.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The findings showed a significant difference in the mean scores of general health before and after laughter Yoga intervention in the two groups of study and control.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings showed that laughter Yoga had a positive effect on students' general health and improved the signs of physical and sleep disorders, lowered anxiety and depression, and promoted their social function. Therefore, laughter Yoga can be used as one of the effective strategies on students' general health.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry Nursing, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohsen
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yazdani
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry Nursing, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
authors.forename: Mojtaba
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Esmaeilzadeh
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry Nursing, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
authors.forename: Saeid
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pahlavanzadeh
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry Nursing, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
authors.forename: Firouz
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Khaledi
keywords: Health; Yoga; laughter; nursing students