PURPOSE This study is to identify the effects of muscle relaxation therapy on mood state and job stress of clinical nurses, finally to purpose the bases of nursing intervention to increased of work efficiency and job satisfaction. METHOD The research design was a nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design. The subjects were 50 clinical nurses (23 for experimental group), who were working for 1-5 years in medical and surgical ward from the 2 C-University medical center in Seoul. This study was conducted from May 12 to July 25, 2000. The muscle relaxation therapy was performed 5 weeks to experimental group. The experi-mental group participated in the muscle relaxation training sessions for 20minutes twice a week during five weeks. The level of job stress was measured by nurses occupational stress scale. The level of Psychological response was measured by Profile of mood state. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, x2-test, t-test, paired t-test. RESULT The results of this study were as follows: The experimental group who received the muscle relaxation therapy showed more reduction of job stress level (t=1.35, p=0.038) and profile of mood state level (t=2.27, p=0.027) after therapy than those in control group. CONCLUSION This study reveals that the muscle relaxation therapy is effective in reduction of nurse's job stress and promotion of mood state. So the researcher thinks that it is useful in reduction of job stress and increased of job satisfaction in hospital.
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