Management of Stress and Depression in Nursing Students through Positive Therapy

Nursing is an exciting, challenging adventure that will demand much of Nursing Students in terms of time and energy. As nursing is a discipline comprising knowledge from many related fields, students will be asked to think critically, synthesize information and then apply it to situations involving live people (Dewit, 2003). A variety of factors such as knowledge, explosion, increasing consumer demand has led to emergence of nursing as an independent profession by increasing demand on Nurses. Nursing holds a pivotal role in the multidisciplinary team of health care services. Persons entering the nursing profession are called upon thus to equip themselves with adequate competencies to move in pace with the advancement that occurs in the profession and the surrounding environment. A big group of the population in any city/country is that of students and the life of students is becoming more and more stressful. In this research 400 B.Sc. Nursing Students from Fr.Muller's Nursing College and Dr. M. V. Shetty College of Nursing, Mangalore, Karnataka were selected by Purposive Sampling. They were assessed using Case study Schedule (Hemalatha&Hithakshi, 2008), Stress Inventory (SI) and Beck's Depression Inventory (BDI). The entire sample was divided into 13 batches of 30 to 32 subjects in each batch. Psychological Intervention called Positive Therapy (Hemalatha, 2004) was given to the subjects for 9 sessions, each session lasting for about one hour, over a period of 3 weeks on alternate days. After 3 weeks the entire subjects were reassessed using Case Study Reassessment Schedule, Stress Inventory and Beck's Depression Inventory. Follow-up was done after 6 months. After the intervention of Positive therapy, Stress and Depression was reduced significantly. There was statistically significant difference in Stress and Depression Before, After and Follow-up. Thus Positive Therapy was effective in the management of Stress and Depression.