A QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL PILOT STUDY TO ASSESS THE EFFECTIVENESS OF STRESS MANAGEMENT INTERVENTIONS ON JOB STRESS AND COPING STRATEGIES AMONG THE STAFF NURSES WORKING IN CRITICAL CARE UNITS OF SELECTED HOSPITAL AT DINDIGUL IN TAMILNADU

Stress is defined as any event, whether internal or environmental, that exceeds the adaptive or resistance resources of individual or social systems. It is a process that involves organic and psychic changes with relevance to the cognitive system and how it interprets different stimuli In dealing with stressful situations, coping strategies are employed in order for adverse events to be experienced more appropriately Methods: The study used a quasi- experimental with one group pretest and posttest control group design. A total of 30 staff nurses were included as interventional group (n=15) and control group (n=15) through purposive sampling technique. Stress management intervention was given for 1 week and review for another 3 weeks. On the first week of data collection, following the pre- assessment, a detailed lecture was given on stress and coping strategies for seven consecutive days to the interventional group. Followed by this, first post test assessment was done on the seventh day to both the groups and reviewed for another 3 consecutive weeks and second posttest assessment was also done flowingly to both the group Data collection tools are(1) demographicvariables,(2) Expanded nurses stress scale (3) Ways of Coping scale (4) Stress management intervention programme Result: The overall mean difference between experimental group posttest-3 (79.33±18.73) and control group posttest -2 (163.53±10.15) group with mean difference was 84.2. The obtained ‘t’ value was 15.35 with p=0.001 which was statistically highly significant difference between groups. The overall mean difference between experimental group posttest-3 (129.9±37.24) and control group posttest -3 (55.07±6.91) groups with mean difference was 74.87. The obtained ‘t’ value was 7.65 with p=0.001 which was statistically Highly significant difference between groups The result shows that the obtained coefficient correlation value in the control ‘r’ =-0.233 and p=0.048 which was statistically