J Korean Acad Psychiatr Ment Health Nurs JKAPMHN Journal of Korean Academy of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 1225-8482 2288-4653 The Korean Academy of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 10.12934/jkpmhn.2011.20.4.423 Original Article Effects of a Stress-Management Program on Stress Coping Methods, Interpersonal Relations, and Quality of Life in Patients with Chronic Mental Illness Kim Eun Ja 1 Gwon Eun Sie 2 Lee Hung Soon 3 Lee Sung Young 4 Park In Hye 4 Jung Dool Nam 4 Lee Eon Jung 4 Jeong Yeong Hui 4 Professor, Department of Nursing, University of Masan, Korea. Director, Department of Nursing, National BuGok Hospital, Korea. Head Nurse, Department of Nursing, National BuGok Hospital, Korea. Nurse, Department of Nursing, National BuGok Hospital, Korea. Address reprint requests to: Kim, Eun Ja, Masan University, Youngdam-lee, Naeseu-eup, Masanwhaewon-gu, Changwon. Korea. Tel: 82-55-230-1259, Fax: 82-55-230-1441, eunja@masan.ac.kr 12 2011 31 12 2011 20 4 423 433 26 08 2011 11 12 2011 12 12 2011 © 2011 The Korean Academy of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 2011 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Purpose

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a stress-management program on stress coping methods, interpersonal relations and quality of life in patients with chronic mental illness.

 Methods

A nonequivalent control group pre-posttest design was used for this quasi-experimental study. The study was conducted from May 1 to December 30, 2010. The 41 participants in this study were selected from patients with chronic mental illness (20 for the experimental group and 21 for the control group). Datas were analyzed χ2-test, t-test, paired t-test, and one-way ANCOVA with the SPSS/WIN 15.0 program.

 Results

There were significant changes in stress coping methods scores, interpersonal relations scores and quality of life scores in the experimental group before and after treatment, which were significantly different from those in the control group.

 Conclusion

The results of the study indicate that the stress-management program resulted in significant improvement in stress coping methods, interpersonal relations and quality of life for patients with chronic mental illness. Therefore, this study shows stress-management programs are useful in clinical practice as effective nursing interventions in patients with chronic mental illness.

 Coping methods Interpersonal relations Quality of life Chronic mental illness Stress-management Kyungnam Nurses' Association

This research was presented at the 3rd Korea · China · Japan Nursing Conference, 2011.

This research which was selected as best research, and was supported by Kyungnam Nurses' association fund, 2011.

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Exp.=experimental group; Cont.=control group.

 Comparison of Stress Coping Methods, Interpersonal Relations, Quality of Life Scores between the Experimental and the Control Group (N=41)

Exp.=experimental group; Cont.=control group.

†Analyzed by ANCOVA with the pretest value as covariate.