VALIDATION OF A SPECIFIC TECHNIQUE OF RELAXATION WITH GUIDED IMAGERY (RGI) ON STATE ANXIETY IN GRADUATE NURSING STUDENTS.
Contributors: University of Georgia.
Published: 1987
Number of pages: 143
Subjects: Education, Educational Psychology.
Description: The problem investigated in this study was the validation of a specific treatment (the Donovan script) of relaxation with guided imagery (RGI) on state anxiety in graduate nursing students. The purposes were to validate the Marilee I. Donovan (1979) script and to investigate the effects of it on the level of state anxiety, as measured by the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). Trait anxiety was also assessed.

Subjects were 33 volunteer master's graduate nursing students in a health sciences university in the Southeastern United States. Thirty-one were female, 2 male. Mean age was 24 years, with a range of 23-53 years. Twenty-four were Caucasian, 4 Black, 4 Asian, 1 Hispanic. Nursing major varied.

The hypothesis tested was: "There is no relationship between the use of the technique of relaxation with guided imagery on state anxiety." It was rejected at the.001 level of confidence.

A one-group pretest-posttest experimental design was utilized. Subjects were tested three times, in five small groups, at 14-day intervals, using the treatment of the Donovan script (recorded on audiotape), and the STAI to measure anxiety.

Preliminary findings, using tests for homogeneity of means and of variances and one way analyses of variances (ANOVA's) indicated the five small groups could be treated as one. The Student's t -test was performed on all testings. Findings of differences between the pretest and the posttest means in each of the three occasions indicated that the differences were not due to random chance. The treatment was significant at the.001 level of confidence in each of the three occasions. Findings of means pretest scores on the second and third occasions revealed that the anxiety reducing effects were short-term.

Based on findings from the study, three conclusions were reached: (a) state anxiety as measured by the Spielberger STAI was reduced following the utilization of the Donovan RGI technique; (b) the effects of the Donovan RGI technique produced short-term reduction of state anxiety; and (c) the use of the Donovan RGI technique had no effect on the level of trait anxiety.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-09, Section: A, page: 2287.

Thesis (ED.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA, 1987.

School code: 0077.