Effectiveness of Guided Imagery Technique on Stress among Teachers in Selected School at Kanchipuram District

The study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of guided imagery technique on stress among teachers. One group pretest post test design was adopted to evaluate the effectiveness of guided imagery. Group sessions were provided those who met the inclusion criteria. The study was conducted at Genguswamy Naidu Matriculation higher secondary school, Maduranthagam. The simple random sampling technique was adopted to select the samples and sample size was determined as 30. Pretest was done by using modified work stress scale. Out of 30 samples 3(10%) had mild level of stress, 10 (33.3%) had moderate level of stress, 17 (56.7%) had severe level of stress on the pretest day. After practising guided imagery technique among 30 teachers 26 (86.7%) had mild stress, four (13.3%) had moderate stress and the„t‟ value was 12.322. It shows the effectiveness of guided imagery technique among teachers. FINDINGS OF THE STUDY: The study findings showed the following result that the pretest mean score was 82.60 with the standard deviation of 15.94 and post test mean score was 50.53 with the standard deviation of 9.33. Hence it was inferred that the guided imagery technique was effective in reducing stress among teachers. NURSING IMPLICATIONS: ❖ Stress may affect the individual both physically and emotionally. Prevention and reduction of the level of stress in the prompt way will helps to overcome the various ill effects. ❖ The health care professionals need to explore the prevalence of stress using more studies to find out the multifactorial cause of stress. ❖ The study implies that the nurse helps the teachers to regain the health status through relieving the stress using guided imagery technique. ❖ Guided imagery play major role in reducing stress among school teachers. It will assist in relieving stress and reducing the risk of occurrence of health problems. ❖ Complementary therapies are often used in palliative care to manage chronic pain in patients. It is considered more acceptable in the interdisciplinary approach used in palliative care than in other areas of medicine. The non-pharmacologic interventions of complementary medicine can employ mind body interventions designed to "reduce pain and concomitant mood disturbance and increase quality of life. NURSING SERVICE: ❖ Nurses working in psychiatric unit should have special training in psychiatric nursing and should know how to assess the risk of stress. ❖ Nurses working in psychiatric unit should have wide knowledge about care of clients with various disorders with stress. ❖ All the health care providers such as the auxiliary nurses, village health nurses, community health workers should be given inservice education related to psychiatric nursing care and assessment of risk for the development of stress. ❖ Concepts of psycho – biology and neurobiology should be used while working in the psychiatric unit. ❖ Guided imagery significantly reduces the stress. So in future nurse can incorporate guided imagery as a part of nursing intervention in reducing stress and to improve the quality of life. NURSING EDUCATION: ❖ Interpretation of theory and practice is a vital need and it is very important to nursing education. ❖ The present study on the encouragement of the staff nurse to undergo continuing nursing education programme, specialized courses or training regarding the management of stress to update their knowledge. ❖ The leader in nursing care confronted to undertake the health needs of the most vulnerable by effective organisation and management. ❖ The nurse educator, whenever plan to provide instruction regarding management of stress among school teachers should provide opportunity to develop skill and attitude in managing school teachers with stress. ❖ Recommended for short term course of psychiatric emergency nursing. ❖ Various workshops and conferences can be put forth on the concepts of psychiatric nursing. ❖ Guided imagery is an important topic in classical and modern philosophy, as they are central to the study of knowledge. ❖ As guided imagery is an easy way to practice, it should be included in training. NURSING ADMINISTRATION ❖ People at the administration position can make necessary policies to implement the concept of psycho – biology in psychiatric nursing. ❖ The nursing administrator should give attention on the proper selection, placement and utilization of the nurses within the available resources giving more important to their creativity ability in education to provide stress management. ❖ The administrator should provide adequate in service education programme on newer management services in stress management and handling of advanced technologies would motivate nurses to carryout nursing intervention and improve the standard of care. ❖ The nursing administrator should allocate the funds in the budget for conducting the continuing nursing education programmes. ❖ Arrange the other alternative therapy and give training to the health workers and make them to put into practice. NURSING RESEARCH: ❖ Today nursing is involved in every issue in psychiatric nursing care due to change in health care delivery systems, advancement of technology and improvement of new discipline in medicine. This study directs the nursing personnel to broaden their horizons of knowledge and skills to elicit problems and to conduct many more research to raise their power to implement prompt stress management. ❖ This study helps in nursing research to develop in depth into the better development of the nursing care protocols and information regarding stress management among school teachers and promote healthy life and to prevent from complication. ❖ Encountered by the clients with stress. This study directs the nursing personnel to broaden their knowledge and skill to elicit problems and to conduct more research to raise their power to implement prompt care activities. ❖ Nursing research to be done to find out the various innovative methods to reduce stress and to improve quality of life. RECOMMENDATION: Based on the research findings the following recommendations can be made. ❖ The similar study can be done with larger number of samples. ❖ Qualitative study can be conducted to find out the multifactorial causes for stress. ❖ The study can be conducted in clients in a particular region / area to find out the influence of environmental factors for stress. ❖ A study can be conducted in different settings and different group and also by using control and experimental group. ❖ A study can be undertaken to evaluate the knowledge after a planned teaching programme