Browsing by Subject "Stress"

This thesis examines the associations between personality traits and sleep quantity and quality in young adults. Additionally the possible effects of birth status on these associations are examined. The data used in this thesis is part of a birth cohort study (Helsinki Study of Very Low Birth Weight Adults). The personality traits are based on the five-factor model of personality. The sleep quantity and quality are based on actigraphy assessments. Four hypothesis were made about the personality and sleep associations: (1) neuroticism is related to a lesser quality of sleep, (2) there will be more significant associations between personality traits and sleep quality than between personality traits and sleep quantity, (3) the Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW) as well as, (4) the Small for Gestational Age (SGA) status will affect the associations. Linear regressions were used to study the associations between personality traits and sleep quality and quantity. Whenever an association was significant, it was tested whether this association was moderated first, by the VLBW and second, by the SGA status of the participant. The results were mostly in line with previous research especially demonstrating the negative association between neuroticism and the quality of sleep and suggesting that vulnerability to stress decreases sleep quality. Also it was found that agreeableness and conscientiousness were associated with better sleep quality and extraversion was associated with lower sleep quantity. In addition SGA status moderated the personality and sleep associations. It is proposed that there are two factors behind the interaction. First, prenatally developing mechanisms have an effect on the development of sleep as well as personality. Second, differences in the postnatal environment, for instance the parenting practices, can account for this finding. Future research could focus especially on what kind of prenatal disturbances SGA infants have in the development of mechanisms related to sleep and personality. Also focusing on the differences in parental interaction might shed more light on the results.

Vårdarbetet har utgjort ett centralt forskningsområde inom stressforskningen. Få studier på området har ändå utförts ur ett diskursivt perspektiv. Syftet med den här undersökningen var att undersöka hur vårdpersonal inom den institutionella äldreomsorgen diskursivt konstruerar stress och stresshantering samt att granska ett hurdant agentskap vårdarna tillåts genom dessa konstruktioner. Materialet bestod av 20 semistrukturerade intervjuer som utförts med vårdare inom en offentlig äldreboendeorganisation i Nyland. Intervjuerna analyserades med hjälp av den foucauldianska diskursanalysen. Ur materialet växer det fram två dominerande diskurser: en normaliserande stressdiskurs och individualiserande stresshanteringsdiskurs. Genom dessa diskurser subjektspositioneras vårdarna till subjektspositionen av en professionell och handlingskraftig vårdare: en vårdare som förväntas se stress i vårdarbetet som normalt och hantera eventuell stress på egen hand. Vårdarna identifierar samt disidentifierar sig med den erbjudna subjektspositionen men saknar makt i att motsätta sig de diskursiva konstruktionerna helt. De dominerande diskurserna är så pass starka att de låser in vårdarna i den erbjudna subjektspositionen trots motstånd. Implikationerna för vårdarnas agentskap är att agentskapet begränsas till en individuell nivå. Vårdarna kan välja mellan att acceptera att stress är en del av arbetet och hantera eventuell stress på egenhand eller att lämna arbetet/branschen, men har inte möjlighet att ändra på arbetets uppläggning eller kräva mer stöd från organisationen. Studien lyfter ändå fram hur saker och ting kunde vara annorlunda. Vårdarbetet kunde vara upplagt på ett sätt som motarbetar/minskar stress och organisationer kunde ta till effektivare alternativ för att motarbeta/minska arbetstagares stress.

Finnish educational leaders (FELs) experience high levels of stress in their work, which has prompted interest in their psychological wellbeing. Research shows that they have various roles and responsibilities, which can lead to poor psychological wellbeing. Most studies have focused on occupational resources, in line with the Job Demands-Resources theory when investigating how psychological wellbeing of FELs can be improved. Previous research highlights an association between sleep and stress, and how they have both been affected by COVID-19. This study examines the role of sleep as an external resource and its association with the stress of FELs as an indicator of their psychological wellbeing, and cognitive stress, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study has three research questions with the following hypotheses. Firstly, that there is an association between sleep and psychological wellbeing of FELs. Secondly, that COVID-19 has had a negative effect on the psychological wellbeing of FELs. Lastly, that COVID-19 has had a negative effect on the sleep of FELs. The research sample in this study were FELs who were part of the Finnish school principal’s association and completed the Finnish Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey. The sample consisted of 1727 FELs over four years of data collection from 2019 to 2022. The measures of sleep, stress as an indicator of psychological wellbeing and additionally cognitive stress were collected using the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire II as part of the wider survey. The data was analysed using Jamovi v.2.3.21 and the types of data analysis used were Pearson correlation, linear regression analysis, comparing means and One-Way ANOVA. The study showed that this sample of FELs are generally stressed. The results showed a statistically significant association between sleep and psychological wellbeing. Sleep was also found to have an association with cognitive stress to a lesser extent. However, there were no significant findings for gender and year of study, in the association between sleep and psychological wellbeing. The results indicated that there was a slight decrease in stress during the COVID-19 pandemic, and a slight increase in sleeping problems, but these were not statistically significant. The study contributes to an understanding of the association between sleep and psychological wellbeing of FELs. The study highlights that further research is required to explore the association in more depth, and that FELs could consider practical strategies to sleep and wellbeing, whilst schools could consider strategies to lessen demands.

Trots att stress är ett välforskat problem inom sjukvården, har stressforskning inom mentalvården fått mindre uppmärksamhet. Mentalvården och den generella sjukvården har mycket gemensamt, men det finns även olikheter. Patienter inom mentalvården kan till exempel vara aggressiva, lida av depression eller bära med sig traumatiska händelser, vilket kan vara tungt för sjukvårdare att ta del av. Denna avhandlings syfte är att granska kvinnliga sjukvårdares upplevelser av stress och stresshantering på arbetsplatsen inom mentalvården. Som material används åtta semi-strukturerade intervjuer som gjorts vid en mentalvårdsavdelning i Finland bland vårdare. Materialet analyseras med hjälp av en interpretativ fenomenologisk analys (IPA). IPA är intresserad av att studera och tolka den mänskliga upplevelsen och fokuserar på små sampel. Analysen identifierar bland annat dåligt ledarskap, bristande resurser, omorganisering på arbetsplatsen, samarbetsförhandlingar, hög arbetsbelastning, skiftesarbete, våldsamma patienter, svåra människoöden och stress utanför arbetet som orsaker till upplevelser av stress hos vårdarna. Vårdarna hanterade stressen bland annat genom att ta stöd från sina kollegor, använda sig av organisationen resurser, separera arbetslivet och privatlivet och ta tid för eget välmående hemma samt fokusera på arbetets positiva sidor, självutveckling, och patienternas utveckling.

This Master's Thesis concerns the British middle-class soldiers' psychological experience as volunteers in Kitchener's army during the Great War. The purpose of this study is to discover how the war affected the soldiers, and why they reacted to it the way they did. It approaches this question by focusing on four aspects of the war from the soldier's perspective, namely: the military organization, his brothers in arms, the act of killing, and the threat of dying. The motivation behind this study was to better understand the experience of these soldiers after they voluntarily joined the world’s first industrial war. Kitchener's army was an army of civilian soldiers, drafted to fill in the ranks of the British army, so that it could properly take part in the war. Through using both relevant historical literature and psychological research as aid, the study uses primary sources in the form of letters and diaries from the trenches to understand and draw conclusions of the experiences personally recounted by the soldiers. The methods with which the study was conducted was through the close-reading of the sources combined with the reading and reviewing of relevant research literature to draw appropriate conclusions. The theoretical framework and subsequent analysis of the sources thus relies heavily on psychological concepts. The concept of masculinity in the contemporary middle-class culture was used to contextualize the soldiers’ experience in their historical timeframe and social niche. Meanwhile, the key psychological terms used in this study in reference to group behavior and stress responses are concepts recognized on the field of psychological research either as defense or coping mechanisms. Where defense mechanisms are commonly understood as unconscious and automatic reactions of the mind to potentially stressful information, coping mechanisms are at least partially consciously driven and maintained by the person themselves to help them refrain from having to face and process the information which they know to be painful. The conclusions of this study imply that the soldier’s social background influenced their war experience both before and after joining the war, giving them a frame of reference for both their set of values and their code of conduct which they drew upon as they adjusted to the life in the trenches. What this study’s results also imply is that while the soldiers had distinctly individual experiences of their own, they were characterized by a set of culturally and psychologically guided features, which hold within themselves a level of predictability. These conclusions suggest that though each experience of soldiers in war is unique, there are broader patterns of behavior within the context of modern warfare, which if understood, could better help predict and understand the behavior of soldiers in comparable circumstances.

Finnish school principals’ extreme stress and burnout reached worrying proportions in the past years that raised research interest. Job demands rose excessively, undermining their wellbeing. Lately, the primary research focus shifted from school principals’ stress to identifying factors that support wellbeing in their challenging work. This study examines school principals’ personal resources (psychological flexibility, grit, buoyancy) regarding combating stress and enhancing wellbeing. The theoretical framework is based on wellbeing studies, focusing especially on the eudaimonic and subjective nature of it, job demands-resources model, and personal resources. The data of the study consists of questionnaire data and physiological measurements. The levels of personal resources and self-reported stress were measured by using the extended Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire-II. The physiological measurements were obtained with the mobile heart rate monitoring device Firstbeat BodyGuard 2. Altogether 456 principals answered the questionnaire and 29 participated in the physiological data collection. The data analysis was conducted with Jamovi statistical program, using Pearson correlation and linear regression. The results showed that Finnish principals’ wellbeing was vitally influenced by the use of personal resources, which were associated with lower levels of stress: 29% of stress variance explained by them. Nevertheless, the sensitivity analysis highlighted that buoyancy itself significantly explained 27 % of self-reported stress. The correlation model between personal resources and physiological stress indicated that 15% of the measured stress variance could be explained when controlled for age and gender. However, none of the variables in the results showed statistical significance. Even though both self-reported and measured data suggested elevated stress levels, based on the analysis direct association between them could not be assumed due to the small sample size (N=29). This study contributes to a deeper understanding of personal resources and stress of Finnish school principals. These findings can support principals’ wellbeing and possible buoyancy-based intervention studies.

Aim of the study. The aim of the study was to explore students' self-efficacy beliefs relation between approaches to learning, stress and workload in professional disciplines. The aim was selected because there are findings that students' in these disciplines perceive lot of stress and workload. Earlier findings reveal that there is a relation between self-efficacy beliefs, approaches to learning and stress. There is also evidence that approaches to learning and workload has relations. But there is not much research about these topics together and not remotely studies in the 2010s. I also studied what kind of relation there is between approaches to learning, stress and workload, and examined how self-efficacy beliefs and approaches to learning together explain changes in stress and workload. Methods. The participants of the study were (N) 197 medicine and veterinary medicine faculties' students' at the University of Helsinki. The data was collected by using University's electrical information system. The questionnaire, which was used, is part of the research project at the University of Helsinki, where I got the data for my study. I used both explorative and confirmatory factor analysis to construct the scales in my study. To be able to answer my research questions, I examine correlations and used variance and regression analyses. Results and Conclusions. Results indicated that the stronger self-efficacy beliefs are the easier student's choose deep or organized approaches to learning. On the other hand the weaker self-efficacy beliefs are the easier student's choose surface approach to learning. Results also showed that stress and workload decrease student's self-efficacy beliefs, and stress and workload were also related to surface approach to learning. The more student perceive stress the easier it is to choose surface approach to learning. According to the results of this study, surface approach explained the changes in perceived stress. In turn self-efficacy beliefs, surface and organized approaches to learning explained the changes in perceived workload. I also discover that informants in this study have quite strong self-efficacy beliefs. Because self-efficacy beliefs have remarkable impact to success in academic studies, it would be important to explore in the future that how common phenomenon this is in professional disciplines.