Effect of Progressive Muscle Relaxation Exercise on Anxiety among Nursing Students before Psychiatric and Mental Clinical Training

Introduction: Psychiatric and mental clinical experiences offer valuable training for nurses. High-quality health care necessitates nurses having the necessary abilities, knowledge, and attitudes to care for people suffering from mental illness or distress. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of progressive muscle relaxation exercise on anxiety among nursing students in psychiatric and mental health nursing clinical training. Methods: A controlled -experimental, pre-post study was conducted in the fall semester of 2020 in the Faculty of Nursing, Arab American University in Palestine. The sample of the study consisted of 60 nursing students enrolled in the Psychiatric and mental health nursing course selected through consecutive sampling. This study was conducted on two groups of nursing students; one of them received Jacobson’s progressive muscle relaxation exercise for five consecutive days per week for two weeks before entering the clinical environment, whereas the other didn’t receive any training. The S-anxiety scale (STAI Form Y-1) was applied to collect data before and after the intervention. Results: The magnitude of anxiety in the intervention group, after the progressive muscle relaxation exercise, greatly decreased when compared to the control group (t (58) =17.26, P \u3c 0.05). There was less anxiety post the program in the intervention group ((M = 1.1, SD = 0.4) than the control group (M = 2.9, SD = 0.4). Conclusion: The study findings indicated that there was a positive influence of progressive muscle relaxation exercise on nursing students’ anxiety levels in Psychiatric and mental health clinical settings. As a result, it is recommended that teaching programs using this approach be conducted to train nursing students at nursing schools prior to the commencement of psychiatric and mental clinical practice in order to lessen their anxiety