The effect of the demonstration-based progressive muscle relaxation technique on stress and anxiety in nurses caring for COVID-19 patients: a randomized clinical trial

• Published in: BMC psychiatry 2022-12, Vol.22 (1), p.791-9, Article 791
• Main Authors: Ganjeali, Samaneh, Farsi, Zahra, Sajadi, Seyedeh Azam, Zarea, Kourosh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anxiety; Anxiety - therapy; Autogenic Training - methods; Clinical trials; Control; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Cronbach's alpha; Data collection; Demographic aspects; Disease; Evaluation; Health aspects; Hospitals; Humans; Iran; Mental disorders; Mental health; Methods; Muscle contraction; Muscle Relaxation; Nurses; Nurses - psychology; Nursing care; Occupational Stress - therapy; Pandemics; Patients; Psychological aspects; Questionnaires; Relaxation; Risk factors; Stress; Stress management; Workloads
• ISSN: 1471-244X; 1471-244X
• DOI: 10.1186/s12888-022-04456-3

Caring for patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) challenges nurses and causes them to experience stress and anxiety. From this perspective, it is of utmost importance to develop quick and effective intervention strategies to prevent numerous complications. This study aimed to investigate the effect of the progressive muscle relaxation technique, using the demonstration method on the stress and anxiety of nurses who care for COVID-19 patients. This randomized clinical trial was conducted in 2021. Forty-six nurses working in two referral hospitals with wards for COVID-19 patients in Tehran, Iran recruited by convenience sampling method and then randomly assigned to experimental or control groups. The nurses in the experimental group educated the progressive muscle relaxation by the demonstration method, and they were encouraged to practice it. The Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 was utilized to measure the stress and anxiety levels in the nurses. Before the intervention, the levels of stress in the experimental and control groups were 13.91 ± 2.41 vs. 14.34 ± 2.74 (p = 0.571), and their anxiety was 13.34 ± 3.41 vs. 12.78 ± 2.21 (p = 0.510), respectively. After the intervention, the levels of stress in the experimental and control groups were 10.95 ± 2.01 vs. 14.17 ± 2.34 (p