Mindfulness Based Art Therapy Used to Facilitate Mindfulness and Promote Positive Coping Skills for Nurses Experiencing Occupational Stress and Related Symptoms
Graduation Date
Spring 2014
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Document Form
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy
Degree Granting Institution
Notre Dame de Namur University
Program Name
Art Therapy
Dean
John Lemmon, PhD
First Reader
Jennifer Harrison, PsyD, DAAETS, ATR-BC
Second Reader
Carolee Stabno, PsyD, MFT
Abstract
According to the American Nurses Association (ANA, 2011), nurse employment will increase by 22 percent by the year 2018. Presently, there are no mandatory restrictions on the number of hours nurses work in a day, or week, or any limitations on their shift rotation (ANA, 2010). When chronic stress is experienced within the work place, such as job demands, job insecurity, and the lack of work-life balance, the employee has a greater risk of developing a psychosomatic illness. The hypothesis of this study predicts that through the use of Mindfulness Based Art Therapy (MBAT) each participant will show improvement with managing stress within the work place, will decrease anxiety and/or depression, will improve quality of work-life, and will improve self-regulation of emotions in response to stress. These outcomes will be measured through pre and post assessments of the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (KIMS), the Symptoms CheckIist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R), the Occupational Fatigue Exhaustion Recovery Scale (OFER 15), and the Occupational Coping Self Efficacy for Nurses scale (OCSE-N). The ultimate goal of this program is to provide the nurses with tools for coping with stress and to facilitate self-regulation of responses to occupational stress and to promote positive quality of work-life for those who serve our society.