COMPARISON OF HUMOR USING THE SITUATIONAL HUMOR RESPONSE QUESTIONNAIRE AND THE COPING HUMOR SCALE BY NONTRADITIONAL AND TRADITIONAL STUDENTS IN MIDWESTERN SCHOOLS OF NURSING (STRESS).
Contributors: Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
Published: 1996
Number of pages: 138
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Education, Adult and Continuing.; Education, Higher.
Description: The purpose of this study was to discover if there was a significant difference between how frequently nontraditional and traditional nursing students experienced humor and mirth and to determine if there was a statistically significant difference in the degree to which nontraditional and traditional nursing students used humor as a coping mechanism with stressful experiences. The theoretical framework used was Lazarus and Folkman's theory of stress, appraisal, and coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984a).

This study was a descriptive research study of 706 undergraduate subjects from seven midwestern schools of nursing. The research instruments consisted of the Demographic Data Sheet, the Coping Humor Scale (CHS), and the Situational Humor Response Questionnaire (SHRQ). Data were analyzed with t-tests to answer each research question. In addition to obtaining frequencies, each group of students was cross-tabulated with the variables on the demographic sheet.

The traditional students had a mean score of 62.9 on the SHRQ instrument and the nontraditional students had a mean score of 61.0. Traditional students scored statistically higher than nontraditional students. The probability of the t-test was 0.01, which was significant. The nontraditional students had a mean score of 20.3 on the CHS instrument and the traditional students had a mean score of 19.8 on the CHS. Therefore, the nontraditional students scored higher on the CHS instrument compared to the traditional students. The probability of the t-test score was 0.03, which was significant.

Although both groups of students used humor, the two groups of students in this study differed on how they used humor. Traditional students possessed more of an overall sense of humor; whereas, nontraditional students reported using humor more in stressful situations.

This study adds to the knowledge of humor as a coping strategy to life stressors. It will aid in generating further research with humor as a nursing intervention and to maintain health and wellness in students.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-06, Section: B, page: 3656.

Thesis (PH.D.)--SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY AT CARBONDALE, 1996.

School code: 0209.