Stress management

This is the first study to investigate the relationship of perceived stress, religious coping styles, and mental health symptoms in university students within a single, faith- based institution. Students face a variety of stressors that may be directly, indirectly, or not related to the college experience. If these stressors are left unmanaged, there are multiple implications including reduced retention, declines in academic performance, physical health concerns, and mental health symptoms. University personnel are reporting increases in the number and severity of mental health symptoms presented by university students. This study investigated whether religious coping strategies provide a mediating effect on the relationship between stress and mental health symptoms. The sample was comprised of 209 undergraduate students, between the ages of 18-32, from a single faith-based university.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive, degenerative disorder that attacks the
brain's nerve cells, or neurons, resulting in loss of memory, thinking and language skills,
and results in behavioral changes and lack of communication. Family members and
caregivers of persons with Alzheimer’s disease can assume added responsibilities and
stress due to the progressive and degenerative component of this disability and places an added strain on the family system. This study was designed to examine predictors of
quality of life of persons living with AD and to examine caregiver burden and predictors
of quality of life of persons living with AD. This study hopes to empower the caregivers
and test the resiliency model of family stress, sense of coherence and social support while incorporating individual patient and family needs by surveying caregivers involved with working with patients with AD. Specific aims of the study include validating
relationships of the resiliency model while determining the importance of family
resiliency, the sense of coherence, social support and the role of psychosocial
interventions specifically Validation Communication Intervention (VCI), to reduce
caregiver burden and to predict the quality of life in persons with Alzheimer’s disease.

The nursing leader's challenging position in today's work environment may lead to an experience of stress, over-commitment, and overdoing. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the meaning of caring for self by registered nurse leaders who had participated in a caring for self project in a community hospital setting. This group of 10 nursing leaders had participated in a caring for self project and had experience in nursing ranging from 18 to 32 years. One year after taking part in the caring for self project the 10 nursing leaders participated in individual taped interviews to explore the meaning of caring for self. Hermeneutic phenomenology (van Manen, 1990) was the method used for the interpretation of this research study. The depth of the lived experience of caring for self was described by each nursing leader. A metaphor of climbing a mountain to the peak of wisdom, being on the path and staying on the path regarding care of self, came from the words of the participants. In their words, the leaders communicate four common themes: Reflections on the Journey, Why Care for Self on the Journey, How to Care for Self on the Journey, and the Wisdom Learned Along the Path. Based on their reflections, recommendations include implementing creative ways to encourage care of self are for the hospital environment and educational methods to reinforce care of self for nurse leaders in the educational curriculum. A focus on care of self described by the leaders in this study may improve personal health, add to personal growth, assist in communication skills, allow for role modeling care of self to others, support setting priorities and boundaries, contribute to flexibility, and promote a work-life balance. These qualities would assist in creating a positive work environment and may influence the retention of nurses and contribute to recruiting new nursing leaders. Caring for self by nursing leaders is an important way for caring nursing theory to be brought to the practice setting. By role modeling a work-life balance nursing leaders bring the circle of caring out to others, beginning with care of self.

The numbers of transplant surgeries continue to rise in the U.S. This results in a greater number of caregivers who are present in the recipients' lives. Most often these caregivers are spouses. Transplant spouses present with emotional needs, which have been expressed in this study. Nurses, especially those who work with the spouses of transplant candidates and recipients, could be appreciative of the requirements that have been told by these spouses. Six women and two men were interviewed for this study. Their stories were analyzed using a phenomenological approach and five themes emerged from the data. The themes that surfaced included uncertainty, support, thankfulness and a positive approach, intimacy and the relationship as a couple, and guilt. Two general structures then evolved from these themes to include adaptation and belief in self and others. The general structures revealed the ways the spouses learned to live during the transplant journey.

In today's era of high stakes testing and accountability, school principals are confronted with many difficult challenges in addition to those traditionally experienced by principals given the advent of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the many mandates each school principal must report on annually. With mandated curriculum standards and widespread demand to improve student achievement, principals face a multitude of administrative tasks. As the school accountability deadline to meet the 2014 federal objective of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 rapidly draws closer for the majority of states, this federal legislation has created increasingly high stress levels, potentially the highest ever, for principals across the country. ... The proposed study is significant to the field of education because this study provides the most current research regarding the mental and physical effects of work-related stress on elementary school principals in an era of increased accountability and the impact stress has on the school climate. Further, this study offers school principals a repertoire of effective coping mechanisms that can be utilized to help reduce their perceived stress levels. Over the time of the study, it was repeatedly reported by the principal participants that their work stress had increased, which was found to have impacted their health as well as the school climate.

This study investigates the relationship between mobbing, burnout, and religious coping styles among Protestant clergy. Mobbing is an emotionally abusive workplace behavior and is defined as the prolonged malacious harassment of a coworker by a group of other members of an organization to secure the removal from the organization of the one who is targeted. Mobbing has only recently become a focus of attention in the US. To date, there are no known studies investigating mobbing in the workplace setting of the church. The broad purpose of this study is to determine if Protestant pastors experience mobbing, how they are affected by it, and how they cope with it. Four religious coping styles - Self-directing, Collaborative, Deferring, and Surrender to God - are investigated to determine how coping styles of religious individuals function in mediating the effect of mobbing or burnout. Burnout is assessed throught he Maslach Burnout Inventory and measures emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. This study utilizes Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and presents two models of mediational analysis.... The results of analysis indicate that Protestant clergy do experience being mobbed which results in emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Clergy with a self-directing coping style experience more burnout than do those who utilize a surrender to God style. Differences in indirect effects between models were noted. The implications to theory and practice are discussed.

The current study utilized a quasi-experimental nonequivalent groups design to investigate whether a 5-week long Mindfulness Meditation Intervention (MMI), would impact measures of attention, positive and negative affect, state and test anxiety, mindfulness, and reactive cortisol levels in 107 school aged children. A series of reliability corrected ANCOVAs were performed on all behavioral variables. Results indicated that those in the MMI group did not differ from their cohorts on any of the behavioral measures. Reactive levels of salivary cortisol were also collected and assayed in a subsample of 25 participants. An ANCOVA on cortisol change scores was performed and findings did not reach statistical significance. Post-hoc power analyses revealed that this could be due to inadequate sample size. To conclude studies utilizing a MMI of longer duration or with larger sample sizes may be required in assessing the usefulness of MMIs in behavioral and physiological measures in non-clinical child populations.

The objective of this study was to compare the acute heart rate variability responses to relaxation alone versus relaxation preceded by Hatha yoga. Twenty women and men (aged 18-50 years) participated in the study. Participants completed a yoga plus relaxation (YR) session and a relaxation only (R) session. The YR condition showed significant changes from baseline in HR (bpm, p < 0.001), RR (ms, p < 0.001), pNN50 (%, p = 0.009), LF (% p = 0.008) and HF (% p = 0.035). The R condition showed significant changes from baseline in HR (bpm, p < 0.001), RR (ms, p < 0.001), HF (ms2, p = 0.004), LF (%, p = 0.005), HF (%, p = 0.008) and LF/HF (%, p = 0.008). There were no significant differences between conditions for the changes from baseline for any of the variables. The results demonstrate that relaxation produces favorable changes in indices of heart rate variability whether alone or preceded by about of Hatha yoga.

This mixed methods sequential research study was performed to explore the role of identity in posttraumatic growth and psychological adjustment for adults with cancer. One hundred nineteen individuals participated in an online survey which included items from Brief COPE, Mini-Mental Adjustment to Cancer (Mini-MAC), Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (BIPQ), Sense of Coherence Scale - 3 items (SOC-3), Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI), Illness Intrusiveness Ratings Scale (IIRS), and Centrality of Event Scale (CES). A two-step cluster analysis divided the sample into two clusters based on the integration of cancer into identity: High Cancer Identity Cluster (cancer identity scores above M) with strong cancer identity and Low Cancer Identity Cluster (scores below the M) with a weak or absent cancer identity. HCIC yielded positive and negative subgroups. A discriminant analysis revealed which variables are significant predictors of group membership: PTG factor New Possibilities (Wilks'l = .781, F (1, 119) = 32.834, p = .000), Psychological Adjustment factor Anxious Preoccupation (Wilks' l= .863, F (1, 119) = 18.612, p = .000), Illness Intrusiveness factor Intimate Relationships (Wilks' l= .794, F (1, 119) = 30.348, p = .000), and Illness Perception factor Perceived Life Impact of Cancer (Wilks' l= .783, F (1, 119) = 32.412, p = .000). From the sample, 17 individuals and spouses/partners were interviewed to obtain a deeper understanding of the lived experience of cancer. Qualitative themes of suffering, woundedness, and uncertainty were found. Narrative data corroborated the quantitative data and contributed depth to the analysis. A new Cancer Identity Process Model was offered in which assimilative and accommodative efforts are informed by identity structures.

Past research has found that among traumatized undergraduate women, proactive coping style was independently negatively associated with posttraumatic stress disorder symptom severity. It also shows that nurses experience many work-related traumas. The present study tests the PTSD symptom level in nursing students and measured whether proactive coping and other personality variables could successfully buffer the effects of trauma. This study found a surprisingly low PTSD symptom level among the nursing students though they reported several distressing traumas. Also surprising, participants reported more distress from traumas relating to verbal abuse than to traumas relating to death and/or severe injury. Proactive coping, optimism, and self-esteem were negatively related to PTSD, anxiety, and depression. Further research will be needed to support these findings.