Description

It is useful for improving concentration and memory, increasing the efficiency of work, and limiting worry and anxiety. Similarly, Ruchiwit stated that the imagination is important and influences the control of our feelings and behaviors in carrying out our daily lives. Our thoughts and imaginations are factors that stimulate our emotions. Our imaginations are creative and can quell our emotions and make us feel comfortable. Emotional stress energy flows with ease, helping the muscles in all of the organs to relax so that a state of calm or relief can then follow, making the body ready to adopt any of various recommendations. Similarly, Saengduenchai stated that methods of mind training and meditation practice should be applied for use in cognitive and behavioral therapy in order to encourage awareness of one’s thoughts and problem-solving ability based on the use of the mind. Such methods have an important use in the cognitive and behavioral adjustment of a person, causing a person to acquire a degree of behavioral durability. The various methods of relaxation, including muscle relaxation, enhancing the imagination, meditation practice, etc., help to abate the tenseness of the emotions within the central nervous system and induce the limbic brain system to become less stimulated. Emotional stress is thus reduced. The affected individual then feels better, both psychologically and physically. This can be accomplished conveniently and without expense.

Methodology

This study on the effect of a program for imagination enhancement through use of a mobile app on the stress loads of nursing students took the form of an experimental research, which was carried out with two groups and using a repeated measures design at each of three stages, namely, pre-experimentation, immediate post-experimentation, and two-weeks post-experimentation. The participants were subdivided into an experimental group, which took part in the imagination enhancing program through the use of a mobile app, and a control group, which received an information sheet on stress management from the mental health clinic of Thammasat University Hospital.

Research Population and Samples

The population consisted of nursing students that were in their second to fourth years of undergraduate study in 2018. They ranged in age from 18 to 24 years, comprised of 420 nursing students studying in the Faculty of Nursing at Thammasat University. The inclusion criteria required that they have low stress scores as measured by the Thai Stress.

The program for enhancing imagination was developed by the researchers and validated by a specialist in mental health nursing. The use of a mobile app was developed using techniques and imagination in order to stimulate an emotional state and to induce change in the muscular system. Enhancing the imagination provides a release for the emotions and a pleasant feeling, and as stated earlier. An audio recording was made of the imagination-enhancement program and was installed in the Mind-Counseling application using the following procedure.

The negative feelings experienced by the nursing students in the group that participated in the program for enhancing their imagination through the use of a mobile app were compared for analysis with the group that did not participate, carried out in three time frames: (1) prior to entering the program; (2) at the conclusion of the program; and (3) at two weeks after program conclusion. The testing for compound symmetry using Mauchly’s test of sphericity classified the significant difference at 0.05 (p = 0.001).

Quality monitoring of the imagination-training program using the mobile application included determination of its content validity by three qualified persons: two psychiatric nursing instructors and one educational technology expert. The determined index of item-objective congruence (IOC) of 0.82-1.00 met the accepted criterion of 0.50 or higher. Recommendations by the qualified persons were implemented for improvement and were tried out.

The mobile application is a communication medium for use in a program for stress-relaxation practice, which is based on autogenic training. It is capable of reducing stress, since it is compatible with the sample group of teenagers and young adults, most of whom are in the habit of using their cell phones for more than four hours each day. This proved to be an alternative way of easing stress, apart from other methods. Its usage features are consistent with the results of a study that proposed a mobile app for easing stress; the app was used in a sample group of 30 people for a period of four weeks and it was found to be capable of reducing stress significantly. Yet, it was found that the average values of the experimental group, whose members were using the program, had increased at two weeks after the conclusion of the program (M = 9.04, SD = 4.38) and were then beyond what they had been when the program had just ended (M = 0.11, SD = 4.16). It is possible, therefore, that after a certain amount of time, stress levels can increase again. Similarly, in a study conducted by Hwang and Jo, it was found that after four weeks, stress levels had increased beyond what they were at the very end of the program. These findings were further verified by a systematic literature review of a study that examined the results of using a mobile app in a sample group that had been afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder. It was found possible to reduce stress, but there were limitations imposed by the length of time that had elapsed since concluding the experimentation. The stress levels would then rise again.

The fact that the stress levels could rise again is only one matter of concern. Use of the Mind-Counseling application requires the payment of a fee in order to download it onto the cell phone where it can then be installed. The price will depend on the service fee of the sample group using it and the memory limitations of the cell phones used by the sample group. It would therefore be necessary to erase some of the data stored in the phones in order to install the program. It was also found that when the members of the sample group in the present opened their phones to run the imagination-enhancement program, there were sometimes other notifications disrupting their practicing. This situation was mirrored in a study on running programs on a cell phone. The study was aimed at reducing anxiety when a notification from a game loaded in the phone interrupts the practice of the sample group yet again.