WORLD JOURNAL OF ADVANCE
HEALTHCARE RESEARCH

Meghna Digvijay Bhakuni* and Nisha Varghese

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Stress has become an integral part of everyday life. Each and every person is under the grip of stress - starting from a two-year infant to an adult. Stress is experienced by all individuals in various periods of life, nursing students also experience stress related to new living environment, lifestyle, health, academic performance, competition, career selection, and relationship with peer group, high expectations from parents etc. Laughter is powerful antidote to stress, pain and conflict. Nothing works faster or more dependably to bring our mind and body back into balance than a good laugh. Laughter therapy is known to reduce stress hormones, increase muscle movement, boost immune system, increase disease fighting cells and proteins, and trigger release of endorphin (body's natural painkillers). Objective: To determine the effectiveness of laughter therapy on reducing stress among nursing student in selected nursing education institute at Greater Noida. Methods: An evaluative research approach with one group pre-test-post-test design was used to conduct the study in selected nursing education institute at Greater Noida. Convenience sampling technique was employed to select 40 GNM nursing students. The Perceived Stress Scale was used to evaluate the effect of the Laughter Therapy by measuring the reduced stress level in the nursing students. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 25. Result: The collected data was analysed by descriptive and inferential statistics. Improvement in stress level after laughter therapy was found to be highly significant. (t(39)=16.83, p< 0.05) Conclusion: The data collected showed low, moderate and high stress level in first year nursing students. It was observed that 72% of the sample had moderate stress level, 12% of the sample had low stress level and 16% of them had high stress level. The mean post-test stress level score were lower than the mean pre-test stress level scores. There was significant difference between the pre-test and post-test stress level of the participants after laughter therapy (t(39)16.83, p