Proper Stress Management Research Articles

Tackling Stress Management, Addiction, and Suicide Prevention in a Predoctoral Dental Curriculum

Health care professionals, particularly dentists, are subject to high levels of stress. Without proper stress management, problems related to mental health and addiction and, to a lesser extent, deliberate self-harm such as suicide may arise. There is a lack of information on teaching methodologies employed to discuss stress management and suicide prevention in dental education. The purpose of this article is to describe a University of British Columbia Faculty of Dentistry module designed to address stress management and suicide prevention, using students' personal reflections to illustrate the impact of the pedagogies used. The module enrolls more than 200 students per year and has sessions tailored to the discussion of stress management and suicide prevention. The pedagogies include standardized patients, invited guest lectures, in-class activities, video presentation, and self-reflections. More than 500 students' self-reflections collected over the past five years illustrate the seriousness of the issues discussed and the level of discomfort students experience when pondering such issues. The instructors hope to have increased students' awareness of the stressors in their profession. Further studies are needed to unravel the extent to which such pedagogy influences a balanced practice of dentistry.

The use of managing stress strategies in the profession of a media creator

Abstract Purpose of the article Mentally demanding job of a media creator (journalist, communicator, etc.) exposes an individual to a high amount of stress. The latter one disturbs the balance of external expectations and internal capabilities, leading to disruption of psychological well-being and reduction of the quality of life. The key to proper stress management is usage of positive coping strategies. The aim of this paper is to research the usage of coping strategies (positive and negative) by the students of mass media – the future media creators. Methodology/methods By means of a standardized questionnaire, we examined the use of positive and negative coping with stress strategies on probands – the future media creators, i.e. students on the faculty of mass media. The questionnaire was distributed personally in amount of 105 with a 95% return of 100 questionnaires. As the sampling method we used the choice of participants based on availability. Findings The results showed that probands elected more positive strategies, and thus they are able to handle stress in a healthy and rational way. As the trend of feminization is constantly evolving in the media, we also examined ability of female students to cope with stress. Our assumption, that women handle stress better than men, was not confirmed. They chose rather negative strategies. On the other hand, the male part of probands was inclined to choose positive strategies. Behind the ability to handle stress in a positive way, in the case of media creators, probably lies the complexity and integrity of personality, and other factors. Limits of research The main limit of presented research is the composition of research sample, i.e. students even though they study in the programs of the mass media, are not the representative sample of the group of media creators in practice. Therefore, we suggest executing similar studies on the sample of the media creators that are already working in the field of media to verify our findings.

Stressors and stress symptoms of Life Science educators in schools in Tshwane North

Increased workloads and curriculum changes have become an integral part of the teaching profession. Knowledge of the major stressors and stress symptoms of teachers is required for proper stress management. We therefore aimed to determine the major stressors and stress symptoms experienced by Grade 10–12 Life Science (previously known as Biology) educators in government schools in Tshwane North (Gauteng, South Africa), as well as to assess their time distribution and their needs with regard to academic support. Questionnaires were sent to the Grade 10–12 Life Science educators in 94 government schools in Tshwane North. Participation was voluntary and anonymous. Only teachers from 36 schools responded. A total of 53.9% of these educators indicated that they spend more than 50 hours each week on school-related activities, 17.3% of whom spend between 60 hours and 64 hours and 9.6% spend more than 74 hours. When asked if they had felt stressed during the 3 months preceding the study, 81.1% of respondents replied in the affirmative; 70.5% of whom felt that school-related factors contributed the most to their stress. Factors identified as major contributors to this stress were: learners’ poor behaviour and attitude and lack of discipline, lack of time, large class sizes, and teaching a learning area in which they were not trained. Educators indicated that they prefer assistance in the form of a book containing portfolio tasks with accompanying assessment tools and suggested memoranda, as well as workshops at their schools. Stress management programmes should be needs directed. Stressors can largely be alleviated by proper consultation and planning on the side of the higher authorities, additional academic support and the availability of appropriate funding.

The Effect of Age on Cognitive Performance Under the Impact of Vibration in a Driving Environment

The effect of organismic variable age on human cognitive performance was studied under the impact of vibration in different automobile driving environments, namely city streets, rural roads and highways. Reaction time was measured in milliseconds through a human response measurement system specifically designedfor the purpose. Results of the study showed that age had a significant effect in city street and rural road conditions. It was also found that the level of equivalent acceleration of vibration and a difficulty index significantly affected cognitive performance in all driving conditions. The organismic variable age observed to have a significant effect on task performance implied that youngsters and older people are stressed differently in specific environments of driving so proper stress management strategies should be evolved for them in order to minimize the number of accidents.