A study to assess the effect of progressive muscle relaxation technique on level of anxiety among first year bsc nursing students in selected nursing colleges at Barwani district

Anxiety is a set of responses that includes excessive worry, depression, nervousness and irrelevant thinking, to a class of stimuli from an individual’s experience of assessment and outcome.

12 million adult face mental health problem each year. Most of these cause anxiety and depression and much of it is stress related. It is estimated that among the world population, the prevalence rate of anxiety is 16.6%. The prevalence rate of anxiety in India is 18.5% per 1000 population.23 According to DSM-1V, approximately 3% of people will develop anxiety disorder during a given year and 5% of people will have anxiety at some point in their life. Studies shows that Generalised anxiety disorder may affect people at different rates based on ages.

Researchers reported about 20.1% of adolescent boys and 17.9% of adolescent girls experience severe anxiety. They also reported anxiety rate is in moderate level among 15-24years. Studies also shows that the ratio of Generalised anxiety disorders among female and male is 2:1 respectively.

Nursing students are valuable human resources, but there is a paucity of comprehensive research in the area of nursing student’s psychological distress and depressive symptoms. Detection of these symptoms is crucial since anxiety and depression can lead to low productivity, minimized quality of life and suicidal thoughts.

 It is observed that nursing students undergo tremendous stress and anxiety during various stages of their course. Occupational mental health and affective well-being among student health professionals has been the focus of increased study in recent years.

Nursing students face high levels of anxiety especially in their first clinical experience. When student nurses suffer from anxiety it decreases their ability to learn and retain information as well as decreases confidence in their ability to function autonomously.

The aim of this study is to reduce the level of anxiety of the nursing students. The nurse educator should understand the nature of the anxiety among the nursing students and can play an important role in reducing the anxiety of the nursing students by practicing progressive muscle relaxation technique. 

The researcher from his past experience as a student nurse identifies himself subjected to high anxiety levels in clinical encounters. He also found high level of anxiety among his co-workers when posted to a new clinical area. 

Progressive muscle relaxation technique is one of the simplest forms of relaxation technique. The investigator realised that progressive relaxation technique will help the nursing students to maintain their emotional balance. Keeping this in mind the investigator, by helping the nursing students to practice daily for 30 minutes would help them to reduce the level of anxiety in order to keep their emotion balance and improve their academic performance.