The Effect Of Laughter Therapy On Self-Efficacy

Method: This study will be carried out with 3rd and 4th year students studying at Sinop University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Nursing. It is aimed to include all first-year nursing students in the study. The study will be carried out in the autumn semester of the 2023-2024 academic year. The sample of the study will be all young women studying at the Faculty of Health Sciences, meeting the inclusion criteria and agreeing to participate in the study.

Arm Title: Control Group At the beginning of the study, data collection tools Personal Information Form, Academic Self-Efficacy Scale and Psychological Well-Being Scale will be applied to the control group. No intervention will be made in the control group. Measurement tools will be applied for the post-test.

Arm Title: Experimental Group Personal Information Form, Academic Self-Efficacy Scale and Psychological Well-Being Scale will be applied to all 4th year nursing students studying at Sinop University Health Sciences in the autumn term of 2023-2024.

• laughter therapy (Behavioral): Laughter therapy session will be applied online for 25-30 minutes once a week for 2 months by the researcher who has the Laughter therapy certificate to the application group. In the laughter therapy session, the practices of introducing the practitioner and introducing the therapy, breathing exercises for a healthy life, keeping the rhythm accompanied by music, turning the laughter that started as if it were childlike games into reality will be carried out.

Primary outcomes

• Introductory Information Form [one day]: This form consists of questions such as age, gender, distraction, loss of interest in lessons, eating problems, sleep status, stress, anxiety, fear, social media use.

Secondary outcomes

• Academic Self-Efficacy Scale [one day]: The Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (ASES) was developed by Bulfone et al. in 2019 as 14 items and four sub-dimensions to determine the academic self-efficacy of undergraduate nursing students. Sub-dimensions of the scale 1- Intrinsic Emotion Management (items 1, 2, 3) from 3 items, 2-Automatically Controlled Behavior (items 4, 5, 6, 7) consisting of 4 items, 3-External Emotion Management (8, 9, 10) 4-Socialism (items 11, 12, 13) consists of 5 items. The items of this scale are scored with a 5-point Likert type (1=I don't trust myself at all, 5=I have a lot of confidence in myself) in response to the question "How much do you trust yourself". The score of each question varies between 1-5 and consists of positive items. The Cronbach Alpha value of the scale was obtained as 0.84.

Other outcomes

• Psychological Well-Being Scale [one day]: It was developed by Diener et al., (2010) and adapted into Turkish by Telef (2013). It is a single factor, 7-point Likert scale consisting of 8 items. The range of scores obtained varies between 8 and 56. The Cronbach alpha internal consistency coefficient obtained in the reliability study of the scale was calculated as .80. The items of the Psychological Well-Being Scale are answered between 1 and 7, as I strongly disagree (1) to I strongly agree (7). All items are expressed positively. Scores range from 8 (strongly disagree to all items) to 56 (strongly agree to all items). A high score indicates that the person has many psychological resources and strengths.

Sex: All, ages: 18 Years to 30 Years, accepts healthy volunteers

Criteria:

Inclusion Criteria:

* Study as a nursing student at the Faculty of Health Sciences where the study will be conducted,
* Being a nursing first class student,
* Volunteering to participate in the study.
* Absence of any psychological disorder

Exclusion Criteria:

* Not to study as a nursing student at the Faculty of Health Sciences where the study will be conducted,
* Not to comply with the criteria for inclusion in the study and
* Not to volunteer to participate in the study.
* Have any psychological problems

• Yasemin Özyer, PhD, Principal investigator, Sinop University