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

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

Touro University

Information on Participants and Data Collection

The participants were recruited using email over a two week period using convenient
sampling. A total of sixty-five people were asked to volunteer, but our goal was to split thirty
volunteers evenly and randomly into a control and an experimental group. Only eleven people
responded to the recruitment email and an additional nineteen people were recruited in person to
participate in the study. The eleven students that volunteered and four of the students that were
asked to participate in person were placed in the treatment group. The remaining fifteen
participants that were asked to participate in the study were placed in the control group.
Randomization was not attained due to the lack of volunteers and the need to personally ask
people to participate in our study. The treatment 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 graduate students at Touro University in Nevada. The
ages of our participants ranged from twenty-two to forty-four and there were two males in the
treatment group while the rest of the participants were female.
Data Analysis

Treatment Group
40

Perceived Stress

35

30
25

21.9

20.8

Pretest

Post Test

20

15
10
5
0

Pretest VS Post Test

Control Group
40

37.3

39.9

Perceived Stress

35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Pretest

Post Test

Pretest VS Post Test

Implications for Practice

Unmanaged stress can become a chronic health issue and many life threatening
conditions, like heart problems, high blood pressure, diabetes, and infertility, are associated with
constant high levels of stress (Collingwood, 2007). Occupational therapists risk professional
burnout because of chronic work stress (Rogers & Dodson, 1988) and research has shown that
yoga can decrease overall stress and improve well-being. Stress has been shown to be prevalent
in graduate students and it is important to find different ways to combat stress that do not involve
spending copious amounts of money or by taking medication (Beck & Verticchio, 2014). All
participants in the treatment group completed a yoga history questionnaire to establish their
completion of yoga in the past as well as any other stress reduction techniques they utilize. Our
studys sample size was extremely small and we did not identify any dominant trends.
Compliance was at one hundred percent with zero percent morbidity. Both the treatment group
and control group were given the Perceived Stress Scale before the study and then again two
weeks later after the completion of the yoga stretching program. The yoga stretching program
was given to the treatment group. The treatment group was given a booklet of instructions for
five different yoga poses that were to be completed on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday night

before bed. Each yoga stretch was to be held for three minutes before moving onto the next step
in the sequence. The treatment group filled out a record log that was supplied to them. It
tracked whether they completed their yoga stretching sessions and why or why not. At the end
of the two week yoga stretching program, all data was collected and put into excel datasheets
separated into two categories, treatment pre and posttest and control pre and posttest data. Our
research question focused on the relationship of perceived stress levels of occupational therapy
students at Touro University Nevada and participation in yoga. When we formulated our
hypothesis, we predicted there would be a decrease in perceived stress levels in the treatment
group after completion of the yoga stretching program. The results of our study supported our
hypothesis. The data showed the control groups perceived stress levels increased between the
pretest perceived stress scale they filled out and the posttest perceived stress scale. The data also
showed the treatment groups perceived stress levels decreased between the pretest perceived
stress scale they filled out and the posttest perceived stress scale. Between the pretest and
posttest, there was a two week period of time where the treatment group completed six yoga
sessions.
Our research shows that yoga can decrease stress, but there were many limitations within
our study. The first limitation is the weekly yoga log for the treatment group was a self-reported
document and was done alone. In the future, we would implement a yoga group for
accountability and encouragement among participants. The yoga would be practiced together so
it would be done correctly and we could control the environment so that it is more consistent
among participants. With yoga being done in their own homes, we had a variety of
environments not necessarily conducive to a true yoga experience. In the future study, this would
be done in a professional yoga environment, such as a yoga studio. We also did not teach the

yoga poses, the participants were only given written instruction, encouraging a variation of
correct yoga postures. This would also be remediated by having a certified yoga instructor
leading a class. 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. We should even out the
groups to include an even mixture from both cohorts in both the treatment and nontreatment
groups. Also, cohort 2015 may have established better stress reduction techniques than cohort
2016 or cohort 2015 may have decreased stress levels because they have different course work
and educational demands than cohort 2016. There were less than 50 participants, which could
decrease the validity of the study. Since the perceived stress level decreased in our treatment
group, the idea of teaching yoga as a part of orientation or the curriculum to the occupational
therapy graduate students would be a great addition to the program/curriculum.

References
Beck, A. R., & Verticchio, H. (2014). Facilitating Speech-Language Pathology Graduate
Students Ability To Manage Stress: A Pilot Study. Contemporary Issues In
Communication Science & Disorders, 4124-38.
Collingwood, J. (2007). The physical effects of long-term stress. Psych Central. Retrieved on
October 12, 2014, from http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-physical-effects-of-long-termstress/000935
Rogers, J. C., & Dodson, S. C. (1988). Burnout in Occupational Therapists. American Journal of
Occupational Therapy, 42(12), 787-792. doi: 10.5014/ajot.42.12.787