Essay Example: Mindfulness-Based Strategies to Help Occupational Therapy Students Reduce Stress

Introduction

Stress is the inability to handle or cope with situations or surrounding threats that affect a person's mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. The effects caused by stress result in different responses and adaptions. Anxiety and stress are among the most significant problems we usually see in students studying medical education researchers have observed a lot of mental strain and stress among people. Medical education has harmful consequences. Such results go through personal and professional life and let them behave in a slightly unusual way, which may affect others (Lemay, V., Hoolahan, & Buchanan, 2019).

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For sure, even the most shrewd students who graduated effectively may consider clinical to be as a by and sizeable unprecedented level of carefulness, anyway in light of pressure and anxiety which generally cognizant and raises in clinical students on account of their irate clinical life and strain and stress of compelled open action 75% of first year inside prescription occupants went from burnout permitted somewhat of exhaustion after their first year of residency, such rage continuous with their whole journey and ultimately makes significant hormonal changes in students and it eventually results in mood swings, increase usage of sleeping pills and sometimes suicide too.one in 10 medical students who experience suicidal thoughts have basically two reasons i.e. debts and hard lessons, it is often observed especially in western countries very mostly students takes liabilities to fulfill their expenses for needs for education, once they go for their job or business and they pay off their debts, but in medicine study it is very hard to pursue debts and studies together so the reason, stress level goes high and few students could not tackle such pressure and ultimately they start taking sleeping pills initially, alcohol, gambling or sometime suicide.

Many cases of depression, anxiety, and stress have been reported in the past few years by undergraduate and graduate medical students. Change in behavior has been noted amongst most medical students. Graduate students in the rotational programs have registered a significant increase in stress, depression, and anxiety. The increased levels of stress have reduced performance both in class and outside class. Anxiety and stress management are the highlighted issues that drive a student towards collapse. May also raise a clump stopper and the disastrous manner that shakes medical students and fundamental values of life (Zoogman, S., Goldberg, 2015).

Nursing physicians and physical therapists for the last 25 years been studying and monitoring student stress levels and identifying various interventions that can be used to reduce the high levels of stress among these students. Stress around the fieldwork for medical students is inevitable. Even though this is the case, students need to be well equipped on interventions on how to take care of patients so that stress does not impact t their decisions while taking care of patients. Preventing students’ tress from negatively affecting patients is one of the top ethical acts.

Due to the various impacts of stress, depression, and anxiety, medical professionals have introduced interventions for students to help them manage the perceived stress. The professionals have provided students with information that has had a positive impact on improving the students deal with their stress. Interventions such as Yoga and Mindfulness training have been used and have shown decreased anxiety in healthcare students (Lemay, V., Hoolahan, & Buchanan, 2019).

This study aims to examine the effectiveness of occupational therapy in mental illness intervention and provide evidence-based practices of interventions that improve mental well-being. When treating mental illness, various efficient and effective interventions should be applied. These include prescribed medication, family psychoeducation, and assertive community treatment (Oswalt, & Riddock, 2007). Besides, scholars have proven that adhering to something similar to evidence-focused interventions is not sufficient enough. Instead, the occupational therapist should consider implementing programmatic standards which will be adhered to during the entire plan to help achieve expected outcomes. Given that the intervention used may require different resources, the occupational therapists must have access to the essential resources and administer them in a manner consistent with the current care plan.

Literature Review

Research based upon the facts of how people exchange or indulge themselves or indulge in stress due to complexities of medical studies people suffer during the period of education and could not achieve balance acting as a medical student, such research has been conducted before upon different values or based upon segregation of individuality. Composite sample, whereas such aspects were further investigated based on a national and international platform to find absolutely how's finely they Manage their anxiety and stress level (Oswalt, & Riddock, 2007).

Graduate students have shown an increased level of academic-related stress. One of the top-ranking causes of this stress is the preparation for the examination, the course workload, the demands of writing professional reports, and paying high fees associated with this course. Nursing Education has shown to have a high level of stress, and there is a negative effect on their cognitive abilities and critical thinking skills. Research shows that the use of cognitive skills is the most affected when students experience high-stress levels. The cognitive part is the part that helps in employing the strategies of taking care of patients. Therefore, a solution must be found to help these students deal with their stress levels to offer professional services to patients (Lemay, V., Hoolahan, & Buchanan, 2019).

Stress Among students

There is a perception among graduate students about how their academic experience is stressful. Stress could result in poor academic performance, a decrease in cognition, and study incompletion. Research has reported that many nursing students perceived that clinical placements and rotations were significant sources of academic-related depression. Other factors that were seen to increase stress are alterations in the examination schedule, due dates for assignments, and classes' conclusions. However, as nursing students transition from lass work to clinical placements and rotations. Depression and stress in students under clinical rotations leads to poor academic professional and psychological result (Oswalt, & Riddock, 2007).

Research has shown that nursing students acquire stress from the tiresome workload. The academic program that includes clinical rotation, and almost six courses in every semester, is highly demanding, thus a significant contributing factor to the high levels of stress. Students also perceived fee payment to be stressful. Stress negatively impacts cognitive abilities and skills of critical thinking in nursing students. Clinical rotations are one of the main areas of nursing program that is perceived to be stressful since it requires critical thinking and cognition. Thus educators must employ techniques that aim at reducing stress associated with education and clinical tasks (Lemay, V., Hoolahan, & Buchanan, 2019).

Perceived Stress

Stress is a common occurrence in the present day. However, it is viewed from different perspectives. In science, stress is measured in cortisol levels, and in phycology, it is considered the social or behavioral response examination. When examining the perceived importance, it is essential to first understand the stress before applying the appropriate intervention.

Occupation therapy is patient-centered, and a holistic health profession concentrated on promoting health through occupation. Occupation therapy utilizes evidence-based practices to assist a person to participate in daily life activities. The standard intervention in occupation therapy involves an occupational therapist working with assistants in various ways to see a patient engage in the occupation they want to, or are expected to do by modifying their environment to support occupation involvement ((Oswalt, & Riddock, 2007). Occupation therapist practitioners have the education, knowledge, and skills required to provide occupation intervention plans for individuals living with mental health illness. Occupational therapy and evidence-based interventions can help mentally ill patients engage in meaningful occupations and become acceptable.

Stress and Mental Health

The effect of stress is huge in clinical students. An investigation done to contrast nursing students with non-nursing Students shows that there are considerable pressure and psychological wellness distinctions between them. The examination shows that nursing students have a high pace of treatment in the investigation time frame when contrasted with the non-nursing students, (Dyrbye, L. N., Thomas, & Shanafelt,(2006)

A voluntary survey done on the American and Canadian clinical students shows that the inclination of sadness and nervousness is at more significant levels in clinical students than the overall matured companions. After the investigation, it was inferred that the impression of stress corresponds with sadness, uneasiness, physical manifestations, and other medical issues; consequently, there is a requirement for better proportions of pressure recognition.

Strategies to Help Occupational Therapy Students Reduce Stress during Clinical Rotations

Use of Biofeedback and mindfulness meditation

Significant levels of stress have been exhibited among nursing students. Various stressors such as meeting professional and academic demands, insecurity regarding clinical incompetence, fear of failure, or lack of medical knowledge are some of the aggressors. Biofeedback is one intervention that has been used since the 1960s to treat stress and depression. The use of mechanical means does this, here an individual gets data on their physiological reactions from a mechanical gadget, and one adapts effectively on the most proficient method to adjust them by controlling internal procedures. Biofeedback training is one way that can change pressure and nervousness or stress side effects by diminishing psychophysiological excitement. A portion of the biofeedback methods can incorporate electromyography, galvanic skin reaction, skin temperature, and pulse. Tests that have been done on the nursing students utilizing this strategy have indicated a reduction in tension and discouragement when appropriately used. The biofeedback mediation program could help nursing students diminish their degrees of uneasiness while keeping up levels of worry at a low rate (Ratanasiripong, P., Park, 2015).

Use of mindfulness-based stress reduction strategy

MBSR is a mediation approach developed for patients with chronic pain, and it has been recently proposed as a significant treatment for mental disorders. The establishment of attention, openness, and acceptance of both inner and external experiences makes one more reflective rather than impulsive. The program follows three approaches, namely, body scan, which simply includes slowly scanning the entire body's attention while focusing on any feeing and adopting time to time patterns of breathing and relaxation, a yoga practice that favors breathing exercises and stretches.