Published Articles

Perceived stress among nurses of psychiatric ward patients with and without suicidal behavior

Fri, 06 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Perceived stress among nurses of psychiatric ward patients with and without suicidal behavior Dr. Uzma Masroor Background and Objectives: The present research was conducted to obtain a perceived stress pattern among nurses attending the psychiatric patients with suicidal and non-suicidal behavior in the different hospitals and clinics of the twin- cities (Islamabad and Rawalpindi) of Pakistan. The main objective of the study was to have an idea about the environment of nursing in psychiatric wards in Pakistani culture. Participants and Method: The sample (N= 36) comprised of the nurses of psychiatric ward attending the one patient for 12 hours (n=16) with and (n=20) without suicidal behavior working into night and day shifts respectively. All the participants gave responses on the perceived stress scale. Participants were approached during their duty hours and were given perceived stress scale 10- items along with demographic information sheet and the consent form. Between group-design was used in the present study. Results and Conclusion: The results indicated that verification of both hypotheses, i.e. the nurses of patients with suicidal behavior had more perceived stress (M= 42 ±3.5) than the nurses of patients without suicidal behavior (M= 19.11 ± 5.7) and also the old nurses had a greater level of perceived stress than the younger nurses according to the same statistics. The t- test, t (28.5) = 14.9 p< 0.05 was significant on 95% confidence interval with variance not equal. Limitations and suggestions for future were also discussed. Both the hypotheses were supported by the analysis- results and by the previous literature.

Effectiveness of play therapy in enhancing social skills in Intellectually disabled children

Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Effectiveness of play therapy in enhancing social skills in Intellectually disabled children Azka Tauqeer Asjad; Dr. NaziaIqbal; Dr. Uzma Masroor Objective: The present study was targeted to measure the effectiveness of play therapy in enhancing social skills in pre-diagnosed intellectually disabled children of mild and moderate level. Methodology: The research comprised of ten intellectually disabled children of mild and moderate level of ages 5-15 from Army Special Education Academy Rawalpindi. Social skills were considered as dependent variable, whereas play therapy as independent variable in this study. The method of this research was quasi, pre-test and post-test type with an experimental and control group. Social Skills Checklist (Heather Thomas, 2013) was administered in pre-test and post-test. It was hypothesized that play therapy on experimental group will be effective as it will produce significant positive results in enhancing social skills as compared to the control group. Result: The analysis included paired sample t-test and findings were presented in tabulated form. Paired sample t-test of experimental group and control group pre and post-test showed significant difference in pre-test and post-test scores. Conclusion: The current study will help in understanding the use of play therapy to facilitate children with intellectual disability and it will bridge the gap between the mental health needs of exceptional children and the available services.

Sex Differences in Displaying Level of Empathy in Pakistani Adults

Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Sex Differences in Displaying Level of Empathy in Pakistani Adults Nazia Iqbal; Naila Aslam; Uzma Masroor Empathy is a distinctive capacity of the human being in which a person feels every aspect of others as his/her own. The objective of the research is to find out empathy in the adults of Pakistan. Is its level increasing or decreasing with time and to explore that whether this type of human emotion is much prevalent in males or in females. . Research shows that pro-social behavior and role taking has positive relation with empathy. Total one hundred and fifty (N=150) individuals with age ranged from 19-40 participated in this research study. About 96 were females and 54 were males. This sample was collected from Rawalpindi and Islamabad. A scale is used to measure empathy level in adults. Results indicate that there are no significant differences in adults of different age groups. It was found that females scored higher on empathy scale as compared to males. Implications of the research findings for future research on Pakistani adolescents are discussed.