This study examined the effects of two 8-week stress-management interventions (aerobic exercise and progressive relaxation) on reductions in trait anxiety, increases in self-efficacy, and enhancement of coping strategies for sedentary working women. It was expected that aerobic exercise, a relatively new treatment, would be as effective or more effective than progressive relaxation, a well researched treatment, as a stress-management intervention.
The subjects were 72 females aged 24-59, (M = 39.8) solicited from the Vancouver community via newspaper advertisement asking for stressed volunteers to participate in two stress-management programs. They were interviewed and randomly assigned to an aerobic exercise or progressive relaxation treatment. The treatment sessions were conducted over an 8-week period with subjects meeting in groups for 1 1/2 hours per week. Prior to the first session subjects were administered: STAI-T (Spielberger, Gorsuch, & Lushene, 1970), the General Self-Efficacy Scale (Sherer et al., 1982), Ways of Coping Checklist (Lazarus 6 Folkman, 1984), and a 7-Day Exercise Recall Inventory (Blair, 1984). Subjects were assessed again at post treatment and at 8-week follow-up. Repeated measures, multivariate analysis of variance with preplanned contrasts, indicated that both treatment groups were effective in decreasing trait anxiety and increasing self-efficacy from pre- to post-treatment. These changes were maintained at 8-week follow-up. In addition, a one-way multivariate analysis of variance with repeated measures indicated that the total number of coping strategies, as well as the difference between the number of problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies, did not change significantly from pre- to post-treatment.
Additionally, there was a negative relationship between low scores in self-efficacy and high scores in emotion-focused coping.
In response to ancillary post-treatment and follow-up questionnaires, aerobic exercise was perceived by the participants as a more satisfactory stress-management treatment. Implications of these results and suggestions for future studies are discussed. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/26758 |
| Date | January 1986 |
| Creators | Haney, Colleen Judith |
| Publisher | University of British Columbia |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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