By: Jayisamma Varghese, Lissy K J, N Gyathri, and Monica Hendricks
1MSc Nursing student, Obstetrics and Gynaecology Nursing Department St. John’s College of Nursing, Bangalore.
2Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Nursing Department St. John’s College of Nursing, Bangalore.
3Professor and HOD of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Nursing Department St. John’s College of Nursing, Bangalore.
4Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Nursing Department St. John’s College
of Nursing, Bangalore.
BACKGROUND: The onset of menopause often brings about various symptoms like vasomotor issues, psychological challenges including depression, anxiety, stress, and sexual dysfunction, all of which can significantly impact a woman’s quality of life. Due to the perceived therapeutic advantages, there’s a growing trend in utilizing mind-body therapies for alleviating menopausal and postmenopausal symptoms. Mindfulness meditation, for instance, enables participants to focus on the present moment, disregarding past or future implications. Hence the study was undertaken to assess the effect of mindfulness meditation on the emotional states among postmenopausal women who are residing at a selected old age home OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY: (1)To compare the emotional states of postmenopausal women before and after mindfulness meditation. (2) To establish the correlation between baseline variables and pre-test scores of emotional states. METHODS: For this study, a quantitative research approach was employed, and the research design utilized was a pre-experimental design, specifically the one-group pre-test-post-test designA total of 38 post-menopausal women who met the inclusion criteria were randomly selected using a purposive sampling method. The study was carried out at St. Augustine Nivas, a senior citizens’ home in Bangalore. Data collection included assessing baseline variables and administering the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale – 21 Items (DASS-21). A pretest was conducted for the post-menopausal women on the first day, prior to starting the intervention. Participants were encouraged to engage in one session of mindfulness meditation (lasting 20 minutes) each day, either in the morning or evening, for seven consecutive days. The post-test was conducted on the seventh day after the final session. Statistical analysis of the baseline variables involved calculating measures such as mean, standard deviation, median, and interquartile range (IQR). Median, Quartiles and Wilcoxon signed rank test were used to compare the effectiveness of mindfulness meditation before and after the intervention. To find the association between the outcomes and demographic variables Median (Q1, Q3) and Kruskal Wallis/ Mann Whitney test were used. RESULTS: The study findings revealed that in the pre-test 47% of the post-menopausal women had mild anxiety and after the intervention the posttest shows 100% of them were free from anxiety. The pretest score of stress showed 29% of women had mild stress level and posttest revealed there was none of the had stress. CONCLUSION: The above findings showed that Mindfulness meditation is very effective for the reduction of emotional states of depression, anxiety and stress. The nurses should take an active role in introducing this alternative therapy in improving the health and wellbeing of women especially the post-menopausal women who is undergoing emotional imbalance.
Key words: Post-menopausal women, old age home, Mindfulness meditation
Citation:
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