A Study to Assess the Effectiveness of Laughter Therapy in Reduction of Stress among Nursing Students

Abstract

The study was conducted in a selected nursing colleges at Wayanad, Kerala and the data was collected using Modified Student Nurses Stress Index and the collected data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. In this study 50 nursing students were selected by simple random sampling technique. A standardized tool containing 24 questions was used to assess the level of stress among nursing students. Some demographic characteristics such as age, gender, hours of recreational activities, study hours, hours of didactic lecture class were used. The result showed that there was a significant difference between the mean pre- test stress score (67.24) and mean post- test stress score(48.64). The computed t value 31.006 showed a significant difference between the mean post-test stress score and pre-test stress score at 5 % level of significance (t(49)=1.672),  hence  H1      was  accepted.  Also, there was significant association between level of stress with the selected demographic variables like year of education and hours spend in clinical area at 5% level of significance, hence H2 was accepted.