Effects of Yoga on Perceived Stress Levels of Occupational Therapy Graduate Students

Touro University
Jennifer Godfrey, Annie Guiliano, Danielle Palmer, and Brianna Pupp

Information on Participants and Data Collection

The participants were recruited over a two week period. They were recruited by
convenient sampling using email. Sixty-five people were emailed and asked to volunteer. The
goal was to have thirty volunteers that would be split evenly and randomly into a control and an
experimental group. Eleven people responded to the recruitment email. Due to the lack of
willing participants, nineteen additional people were personally recruited to participate. The
eleven students that happily volunteered were automatically placed in the treatment group.
Fifteen participants that were personally asked to be part of the study were automatically placed
in the control group. An additional four students were personally asked to participate in the
treatment group. Randomization was not attained due to the lack of volunteers. The
experimental group contained nine students from Cohort 2016 and six students from Cohort
2015. The control group consisted of fifteen students from Cohort 2016. One hundred percent

of the thirty participants completed the research study. The participants were all occupational
therapy students at Touro University Nevada. The ages ranged from twenty-two to forty-four.
There were two males in the treatment group. The rest of the participants were female.
Data Analysis

Treatment Group
40
35
30
25
Perceived Stress 20
15
10
5
0

21.9

20.8

Pretest

Post Test

Pretest VS Post Test

Control Group
40
35
30
25
Perceived Stress 20
15
10
5
0

39.9

37.3

Pretest

Post Test

Pretest VS Post Test

Implications for Practice

Stress that is unmanaged can become chronic and has many life threatening conditions
associated with it. Our profession has a risk of professional burnout, but there has only been few
studies that look into this concern. Research has shown that yoga can decrease overall stress and
improve well-being. Stress has been shown to be prevalent in graduate students. It is important

to find different ways to combat stress that do not involve taking medication (Beck & Verticchio,
2014). There was a yoga history questionnaire completed by all the treatment group participants
to establish their yoga history and any other stress reduction techniques utilized. The sample size
was small and there were no dominated trends identified. There was one hundred percent
compliance with zero percent morbidity. Both the treatment and control group were given a
Perceived Stress Scale, which they filled out before the study began and then again two weeks
later after the completion of the study. The treatment group was given instructions for five yoga
poses that they were to do for three minutes apiece. They were instructed to do the yoga on
Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday nights before bed. The treatment group filled out a log that we
supplied them that tracked whether they completed the sessions or not and why. All of the data
was collected and put into an excel datasheet. The research question asked was if doing yoga
three times a week lowers the perceived stress in Touro graduate occupational therapy students.
When formulated our hypothesis, we predicted that there would be a decrease in perceived stress
levels. The results supported our hypothesis. The results showed that the control groups
perceived stress levels increase between the first time they filled out the Perceived Stress Scale
and the second time. The results showed that the treatment groups stress decreased from the
first Perceived Stress Scale they filled out to the second. This was a two week span where the
treatment group completed six yoga sessions. Our research shows that yoga can decrease stress
but there were many limitations with our study. One limitation is that the weekly yoga log for
the treatment group was self-report. In the future, we would implement a yoga group. The yoga
would be practiced together so it would be done correctly and it would keep all of the
participants accountable. Another limitation is that all of our control group consisted of cohort
2016 while our treatment group was a mixture of both cohort 2015 and cohort 2016. Since the

perceived stress did decrease in our treatment group, it might be a good idea to teach yoga
practice as a part of orientation to the occupational therapy program.