The Effect of Progressive Relaxation Exercises by Nursing Students Before Clinical Practice

March 23, 2026 updated by: Celal Bayar University

The Effect of Progressive Relaxation Exercises Applied to First Year Nursing Students Before Clinical Practice on Perceived Stress, Psychological Resilience and Meaning of Life

Aim: The investigators conducted this randomized controlled study to determine the effect of Progressive Relaxation Exercises practiced by first year nursing students before clinical practice on their perceptions of stress, psychological resilience and meaning of life.

Background: Progressive Relaxation Exercises has a positive effect on the person's mental/general health, life satisfaction and psychological well-being and enables the person to cope with stress.

Design: In this experimental randomized and controlled study including a control group, we administered a pre-test, post-test one and post-test two to the participating students.

Methods: The investigators are planning the study with 40 first year nursing students in the intervention group, and 40 first year nursing students in the control group. The students in the intervention group took part in eight sessions of Progressive Relaxation Exercises for four weeks, twice a week. We used the Student Introduction Form, Perceived Stress Scale, Brief Psychological Resilience Scale and Meaning and Purpose of Life Scale to collect the study data.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

80

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Turkey (Türkiye)
    • Yunusemre
      • Manisa, Yunusemre, Turkey (Türkiye)
        • Manisa Celal Bayar University

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Who did not have any diagnosed psychiatric diseases,
  • Who had not done Progressive Relaxation Exercises and / or did not have any clinical experience previously were included

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Who withdrew from the study at any stage,
  • Those who did not participate in the exercise sessions regularly
  • Those who used another relaxation method during this period,
  • Those who took antidepressants,
  • Those who were unwilling to participate in the study,
  • Those who lost one of their loved ones in the last 6 months were excluded from the research.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Supportive Care
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: Control
No intervention
Experimental: Intervention
A total of eight sessions of laughter yoga are applying to the students in the experimental group for four weeks, twice a week
Behavioral: progressive relaxation exercise
We will use progressive relaxation exercises to investigate the potential effects on first year nursing students' whose in the preclinical period of education.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Meaning and Purpose of Life
Time Frame: four weeks
Meaning of life of students was assessed with 17 items Meaning and Purpose of Life Scale. The options for the positive statements are scored as follows: strongly agree (5), agree (4), undecided (3), disagree (2), and strongly disagree (1). The negative statements are reverse scored. The options for the negative statements are scored as follows: strongly agree (1), agree (2), undecided (3), disagree (4) and strongly disagree (5).While the lowest possible score that can be obtained from the scale is 17, the highest possible score is 85. A high score indicates that the person's perception of the meaning and purpose of life is more positive whereas a low score indicates the person's perception of the meaning and purpose of life is more negative
four weeks
Stress
Time Frame: four weeks
Stress of students was assessed with Perceived Stress Scale. Responses given to the items are rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 0 to 4 (0- Never, 1-Almost Never, 2-Sometimes, 3-Quite often, 4-Very Often). Items 4, 5, 7 and 8 containing positive statements are reverse scored. The minimum and maximum scores that can be obtained from the PSS are 0 and 40, respectively. The higher the score is the higher the level of stress is.
four weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Celal Bayar University

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

March 4, 2025

Primary Completion (Actual)

March 13, 2025

Study Completion (Actual)

April 28, 2025

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

March 6, 2025

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 6, 2025

First Posted (Actual)

March 11, 2025

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

March 27, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 23, 2026

Last Verified

March 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • MCBU-K-CEVIK-004

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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