Efficacy of Mindfulness Based Cognitive therapy (MBCT) for Stress Reduction With Female Nurses

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy on reducing perceived stress among female general practice nurses. The hypothesis forming the basis of this research was that there would be a significant level of difference in the pre-intervention and post-intervention perceived stress levels of the nurses. Furthermore, this study hoped to investigate whether MBCT acts as a coping mechanism for the participants and helps to lower perceived stress levels. For this study, the female nurses of ages between 25 to 45 years, who were working as general practice nurses at a local private hospital in Karachi were selected.The intervention consisted of 10 sessions in which Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy intervention was applied with the participants in a group setting. The intervention was applied in a single group consisting of 5 participants. The efficacy of the intervention was tested using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) by Cohen et. al (1988). This test was conducted with the participants of the intervention prior to the intervention being administered and immediately after the completion of the intervention. In addition, one on one interviews were also conducted with the participants after the completion of the intervention. The results showed that the paired sample t-test value of 2.794 which is statistically significant. Furthermore the mean difference of the total PSS scores before and after the intervention was 3.6 which again represents a significant change thus proving the efficacy of MBCT as means of reducing perceived stress among female general practice nurses.