title: Impact of a stress management program on stress perception of nurses working with psychiatric patients.
abstract: Nurses caring for psychiatric patients may have to face violent emotions and unpredictable behaviour which can be quite stressful. A stress management program may equip nurses with skills to cope effectively with the stress. A one group pre-test and post-test design was adopted to test this hypothesis. Both gender nurses caring for psychiatric patients were invited to undergo 10 consecutive, one hour sessions of a stress management program. The DCL Stress scale (The De Villiers, Carson & Leary Stress Scale; Carson et al., 1997a,b,c) was used to collect data immediately after intervention and four weeks later. RM ANOVA with spss 16 showed that pre-intervention mean stress reduced significantly (p=0.000) from 57.45±16.42 to 41.06±16.51 immediately following the intervention and 26.43±12.82 (p=0.000) four weeks after the intervention. The stress management strategies positively impacted on nurses' stress levels.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing, National Institute of Mental Health & Neurosciences (INI), Hosur Road, Near Wilson Garden, Bangalore 560029, Karnataka, India. Electronic address: sailaxmi63@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Gandhi
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sailaxmi
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing, National Institute of Mental Health & Neurosciences (INI), Hosur Road, Near Wilson Garden, Bangalore 560029, Karnataka, India.
authors.forename: Krishnasamy
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lalitha
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002055:Burnout, Professional / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000523:psychology; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000451:nursing; D008875:Middle Aged; D009726:Nurses / Q000523:psychology* / Q000592:standards; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000523:psychology; D010465:Perception; D011568:Psychiatric Nursing / Q000592:standards; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000523:psychology
keywords: Nurses; Psychiatric patients; Stress; Stress management interventions