Psychological Flexibility, Somatic Symptom
Conditions
Keywords
acceptance and commitment therapy, psychoeducation, nursing students, psychological flexibility, somatic symptom
Brief summary
In this study, the effects of acceptance and commitment therapy-based group psychoeducation applied to nursing students on psychological flexibility and somatic symptoms will be examined. The research will be carried out as a randomized controlled experimental study with a pre-test-post-test and follow-up design.
Detailed description
The stress factors that nursing students encounter differ from other students. One of the reasons for this is that the nursing curriculum includes working simultaneously in both theoretical and clinical environments. In a study, it was determined that nursing students' lack of stress coping skills caused internal stressors to turn into external stressors. When these individuals cannot cope with situations that cause stress, they can express the stress they experience with somatic symptoms. Somatic symptom disorder is defined as the state of seeking help for mental problems with somatic symptoms. The inability to treat these somatic symptoms of individuals forces them to live with these symptoms for years and sometimes for a lifetime and continue to seek treatment. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which provides a new perspective for individuals to cope with stressful life events, aims to gain psychological flexibility, which is the capacity for individuals to experience challenging conditions at the moment they are in and to behave in a way that is compatible with their value areas under these conditions. The opposite of psychological flexibility is psychological inflexibility. Experiential avoidance is one of the basic components of the concept of psychological inflexibility. The state of escape and avoidance and actions that occur when an individual does not want to be in contact with situations that stress them are defined as experiential avoidance. When the relevant literature is examined, it has been reported that somatic symptoms are seen as experiential avoidance behaviors in individuals. The continuity of somatic symptoms as a reaction to stress, their inability to intervene, and their chronicity cause them to turn into a somatic somatic symptom disorder. Since nursing students are a highly stressed group, their reactions to stress should be observed, somatic symptoms in these students should be evaluated, and psychological flexibility should be increased before somatic symptoms turn into disorders and students start their professions, and healthier members of the profession should be trained in terms of mental and physical health. However, psychosocial intervention studies that will help with somatic symptoms continue to be the subject of very little research.
Interventions
OTHERAcceptance and commitment therapy based group psychoeducation
Acceptance and commitment therapy-based group psychoeducation aimed at increasing nursing students' psychological flexibility and reducing their somatic symptoms.
Sponsors
Tugba Yildirim
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
SINGLE (Outcomes Assessor)
Masking description
Due to the nature of the study, it is not possible to blind the researcher implementing the intervention and the participants. To prevent bias in the study, the pretest will be applied before randomization. It is planned to blind the statistical and report writing process in the study. The assignment of students to the intervention and control groups will be made by a statistician independent of the study. The researcher and students will not know which group they are in until the application begins. After applying the follow-up tests, the researcher will code the data as A and B groups and transfer it to SPSS. With this method, it is planned that the statistician will do the analysis and reporting without knowing which group is the intervention and which group is the control group. It is planned to explain the codes of the groups after the analysis and reporting of the data. In this way, detection bias, statistical bias, and reporting bias will be prevented.
Intervention model description
In the study, 54 students were taken as sampling, 27 of which were experimental and 27 were control.
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* Volunteering to participate in the study * No problems understanding and speaking Turkish * Having moderate and high-level somatic symptoms (Scoring 26 or higher on the Bradford Somatic Inventory)
Exclusion criteria
* Scoring 25 or less on the Bradford Somatic Inventory * Having been diagnosed with a chronic/systemic physical illness * Having been diagnosed with a psychiatric illness * Being on medication for a current physical or psychiatric illness * Have received or are receiving individual or group psychotherapy/counseling programs within the last two years * Being a foreign national * Being pregnant
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Change in the Psychological Flexibility Scale | Baseline, 8th week, 1st month follow-up, 3rd month follow-up) (Pretest-posttest follow-up experimental design | The Psychological Flexibility Scale consists of 28 items and five sub-dimensions. The sub-dimensions of the scale are: Values and committed action, Contact with the present moment, Acceptance, Self as Context and Defusion. The increase in the scores obtained from the sub-dimensions and total scores of the scale means that individuals are psychologically flexible. The lowest score that can be obtained from the scale is 28, and the highest is 196. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Bradford Somatic Symptom Inventory Change | screening, baseline, 8th week, 1st month follow-up, 3rd month follow-up) (Pretest-posttest follow-up experimental design) | Bradford Somatic Inventory consists of 44 items. It questions the individual's experience of a wide variety of somatic symptoms on less than 15 days or more than 15 days during the previous month. In the total score of the scale, 0-25 is the low range, 26-40 is the medium range, and\>40 is the high range. |
Other
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Participant Information Form | baseline, 8th week, 1st month follow-up, 3rd month follow-up) (Pretest-posttest follow-up experimental design) | The participant information form is a ten-question form prepared by the researcher to determine the sociodemographic characteristics of nursing students (age, gender, class information, marital status, mother's education status, father's education status, family income status, family type, where they lived before starting university and who they currently live with). |
| Inclusion Form | screening | The inclusion form is a seven-question form prepared by the researcher to determine the disease status of nursing students (physical and psychiatric disease diagnosis, treatment, psychotherapy, or psychological counseling status) and sociodemographic characteristics (nationality and pregnancy status). |
Countries
Turkey (Türkiye)
Outcome results
None listed