Laughter Therapy and Mindfulness Practices

Nurses working by shifts under intense stress and pressure and using complicated technological products- undergo fatigue and attention deficit with the effect of the many negative factors caused by work setting. This threatens patient and staff safety as well as leads to communicational problems, work absenteeism, lowered motivation, inability to control stress and poor work performance and productivity among nurses as well. In this sense; laughter therapy and mindfulness practices may help nurses cope with these problems because some experimental studies proved that both methods showed many benefits in different samples. However; no studies in which these two methods were compared among nurses were encountered. Therefore; the study -being in experimental design and randomized controlled trial- will be undertaken with a total of 111 nurses employed at a university hospital -37 nurses allocated to the experimental 1 group, 37 nurses to the experimental 2 group and 37 nurses to the control group-. First; Computer-Based Sustained Attention Test, the Stroop Test Çapa Version, The Chalder Fatigue Scale (CFQ) and Individual Work Performance Questionnaire will be administered to the nurses of the experimental and control groups as a pre-test. Then; nurses of the experimental 1 group will join sessions of laughter therapy (30-45 minutes twice a week for 8 weeks) and nurses of the experimental 2 group will join sessions of mindfulness practices (45-60 minutes twice a week for 8 weeks) for two months. One month later when the sessions are started, a mid test will be administered and soon after the sessions are completed a post test will be administered to the nurses via Computer-Based Sustained Attention Test, the Stroop Test Çapa Version, The Chalder Fatigue Scale (CFQ) and Individual Work Performance Questionnaire. One month later after the post test; a follow-up will be performed using the same tools. As a result; the effects of both applications on fatigue, attention and performance will be investigated.