Facilitating Speech-Language Pathology Graduate Students' Ability To Manage Stress: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Purpose : The authors of this study ex- plored the perceived levels of stress, as measured by the Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen, Karmarck, & Merm- elstein, 1983), experienced by speech-language pathol- ogy students in their 1st semester of graduate school and investigated techniques that could help these students manage their perceived stress effectively. Method: As part of a required course, 50 1st-se- mester graduate students in communication sciences and disorders received instruction in general stress management techniques (e.g., breath techniques, re- futing irrational ideas, maintaining a stress journal). Twenty-six of these students also participated in 1 yoga class per week for 6 weeks. For the students in the yoga classes, a 1-group single-treatment counterbalanced design (Hegde, 1994) was used. This design has 2 conditions—a no-treatment and a treatment condition—so each participant experienced both conditions and served as her own control. Half of the students participated in yoga during the 1st S