Critical Evaluation of an Article

A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY ON STRESS AMONG EMPLOYED &

HOUSEWIVES AND ITS MANAGEMENT THROUGH PROGRESSIVE

MUSCULAR RELAXATION TECHNIQUE

& MINDFULNESS BREATHING

for the partial fulfillment of Internal Assessment for

Paper-V- Clinical Psychology Practicum (Sem. III)

By

Priya Bambal, Sanil Patil, Sweety Kshirsagar, Shweta Zade

and Ashvin S. Waghmare

Students of MA - Psychology, Part II, Sem. - III

Department of Psychology,

Rashtrasant Tukdoji Maharaj Nagpur University, Nagpur

2017
 Table of Contents

About author and journal..3

Abstract4
Summary of introduction.4
Method.....7
Description of the tool .7
Procedure..........7
Result8
Critical Evaluation............8
Limitations....9
Utility............9
Final comment.10
References...11
A Psychological Study On Stress Among Employed Women & Housewives
Through PMRT And Mindfulness Breathing

Corresponding Author:
Muntazir Maqbool Kermane
Department of Psychology
HNBG Central University, Uttarakhand, IndiaTel: 07895479866
E-mail: peerzadamuntazir@gmail.com

The article was received on January 04th, 2016 and accepted on February
17th, 2016. The article was published online on, February 26 th, 2016 after peer
reviews.

Open Access Journals gaining more Readers and Citations , 700

Journals and 15,000,000 Readers Each Journal is getting 25,000+ Readers

This Readership is 10 times more when compared to other Subscription

Journals according to the Google Analytics.

OMICS International organizes 3000+ Global Conference series Events

every year across USA, Europe & Asia with support from 1000 more
scientific Societies and Publishes 700+ Open Access Journals which contains
over 50000 eminent personalities, reputed scientists as editorial board
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Citations Report

The articles published in Journal of Psychology & Psychotherapy have been

cited 180 times by eminent researchers all around the world. Following is the list
of articles that have cited the articles published in Journal of Psychology &
Psychotherapy.
Abstract

Stress is defined as the non-specific response of the body to any demand

placed upon it. The study seeks to assess the stress level among the Employed
women and house wives and its management through Progressive muscle
relaxation (PMRT) and Mindfulness breathing. It made use of purposive sampling
in selecting the 100 women 50 employed (working) and 50 housewives. The
sample responded to the valid and reliable instrument. Sings personal stress source
inventory was used to assess the level of Stress. Pre and post test research design
was used. Here the t stat was used to calculate the significance of difference
t=7.280 which was significant at 0.05 level of significance. Results reveal that the
stress level was high among the Employed women in comparison to house wives.
Intervention sessions of Progressive muscular relaxation technique (PMRT) and
mindfulness breathing were provided to the experimental group of 25 Employed
women and no intervention was given to other 25 employed women i.e., control
group. After the intervention post test was taken t=23.778 significant at 0.05 level
of significance in Experimental group and t=1.685 non-significant at 0.05 and 0.01
level of significance in control group. This determined the significant decline in the
stress level of Experimental group of employed women and no decline in the
control group. The stress level was reduced from moderate to low level of stress.

Summary of introduction

In the introduction the author, Mr. Muntazir Maqbool Kermane provides

information and different definitions of stress, then the author discusses its effect
specially on working [i.e. employed ] women and on housewives. It is not exactly
a comparative study although the author is providing his results on the basis of
results obtained from the comparison of two different groups of women i.e.
employed and not-employed [Housewives]. It is study of effect of stress on mainly
working women. Working women and housewives are the two variables of this
study. The author employed Progressive Muscle Relaxation Technique [PMRT]
and Mindfulness Breathing Technique to check their effect as Stress Buster.

The author provided some description about PMRT as developed by Dr.

Edmund Jacobson, and Mindfulness Breathing popularized by Mr. John John
Kabat- Zinn and which is a basic meditation practice of every Buddhists
meditation including Insight Meditation which is commonly known as
Vipassana in India, Srilanka and Brahmadesh. The author discusses the benefits
of these techniques.

The author reviewed six different studies which are similar and related to the
present topic

Sanlier and Arpaci [18] studied the effect of stress on women health. Results reveal
that employed women in the stress scale have a higher average score than that of
the non- employed women. It has been determined that total stress scores of
employed women were higher as compared to non- employed women and that
there was a significant difference between womens working status and total stress
scores. Employed women had higher level of stress than non- Employed women.

Hashmi et al. [19] found that working married women have to face more
difficulties in their lives like they experienced more stress and depression
(https://www.omicsonline.org/scholarly/alcoholism-anddepression-
journals-articles-ppts-list.php) as compared to non-working married women.

Cruess et al. [20,21], Field et al. [22], found that relaxation techniques such as
progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) [23], have been proven to be reliable
methods in reducing self-reported stress and stress-related physiological activity in
various non-pregnant clinical populations, as well as in healthy subjects.

Bastani et al. [24], Field et al. [25,26], Nickel et al. [27] and Teixeira et al. [28]
studied that the immediate impact of relaxation on pregnant
(https://www.omicsonline.org/scholarly/malaria-in-pregnant-womenjournals-
articles-ppts-list.php) women indicates a reduction in experienced stress or anxiety.

Chaudhari et al. [29] studied that increase in stress levels are found in female
health care professionals in the Eastern part of India due to shortage of manpower,
lack of infrastructure, long emergency duty hours and inadequate remuneration for
their hard work. Practicing relaxation exercises had decreased not only the stress
levels but also increased the quality of their life and most important patient care.
Patel [30] revealed that in pre test most of the nurses 53.3% had moderate stress,
40.0% had mild stress and 6.7% had severe stress. In post test most of the nurses
had mild stress 73.3% and no stress 26.7%. It is concluded that Progressive Muscle
Relaxation Therapy is effective in reducing the stress level of the staff nurses.

The author provided five different objectives for his study

To find out the stress level of employed women.

To find out the stress level of unemployed women.
To compare the stress level of employed and unemployed women.
To see the effect of PMRT and Mindfulness breathing upon stress.
To compare the pre and post test results of experimental and control group of
employed women after intervention.

The author developed three Null- hypotheses for this study which as it seems are a
bit convenient

H0 1: There would be no significant difference in the mean score of stress level

among Employed women and house wives.

H0 2: There would be no significant difference in the stress level of Employed

women and house wives.

H0 3: There would be no significant effect of PMRT and Mindfulness breathing

upon the stress level in experimental and control group of Employed women.

The null hypothesis states that there is no relationship between the two
variables being studied (one variable does not affect the other). It states results are
due to chance and are not significant in terms of supporting the idea being
investigated.

In many statements of null hypotheses there is no appearance that these can

have directionality, in that the statement says that values are identical. However,
null hypotheses can and do have "direction" - in many of these instances statistical
theory allows the formulation of the test procedure to be simplified so that the test
is equivalent to testing for an exact identity. That is, if we formulate a one-tailed
alternative hypothesis that application of Drug A will lead to increased growth in
patients, the effective null hypothesis remains that application of Drug A will have
no effect on growth in patients. It is not merely the opposite of the alternative
hypothesis that is, it is not that application of Drug A will not lead to increased
growth in patients. However this does remain the true null hypothesis.

Method

The quota sampling method was used by the author. Sample consisted of
100 educated women 50 were employed and 50 House wives (unemployed). The
age of the subjects ranges from 25 to 40 years with the mean age of 34.3 for
employed and 28.5 for housewives.

Description of the tool used

For the present study Singhs Personal Stress Source Inventory

(https://www.omicsonline.org/scholarly/maternal-stress-journals-articles-ppts-
list.php) (SPSSI) was used to assess the level of stress among employed women
and housewives. The stress scale (SPSSI) constructed and standardized by Arun
Kumar Singh was used. The test comprises of 35 items and there are three given
response options for each event namely, Seldom, sometimes, and frequently.
Higher the score, the higher is the magnitude of personal stress. Likewise, lower
the score, lower is the magnitude of personal stress. The maximum scores on
SPSSI are 105.

Procedure

All the participants of the study were individually informed about the
purpose of the study and were asked to complete Sings Personal Stress Source
Inventory. The scores of both the groups i.e., employed women and house wives
were statistically analyzed. After the pre-test the more stressed group (employed
women) were randomly divided in two equal groups of experimental and control
group. The experimental group was provided with the sessions of PMRT and
Mindfulness breathing twice a week for three months by the researcher. While on
other days they were instructed to practice the techniques by themselves twice a
day i.e. early in the morning, and at bed time. The participants were provided with
daily record sheets which they were required to fill up regularly and were checked
twice weekly. The control group was not provided with any interventions. After
three months, post-test was taken and the pre-test and post- test scores were
statistically analyzed using t test to test the significance of difference between the
groups.

Result

After the study it was found that the stress level is high in employed women
in comparison to housewives. So the null hypothesis HO1 was rejected which
interprets that there is a significant difference in the stress level of employed
women and housewives.

The null hypothesis was accepted, which indicates that there was no
significant difference in the stress level of control group in the post test.

The null hypothesis was rejected. Which indicates that after the intervention
of PMRT and mindfulness breathing the stress level of employed women was
significantly decreased from moderate level of stress to low level of stress.

Critical Evaluation

About the Journal

Open Access Journals gaining more Readers and Citations,700

Journals and 15,000,000 Readers Each Journal is getting 25,000+ Readers
This Readership is 10 times more when compared to other Subscription Journals
(Source: Google Analytics)

OMICS International organizes 3000+ Global Conference series Events

every year across USA, Europe & Asia with support from 1000 more
scientific Societies and Publishes 700+ Open Access Journals which contains over
50000 eminent personalities, reputed scientists as editorial board members.

The author, Muntazir Maqbool Kermane is qualified to present the paper on

the chosen topic as he is a Ph.D. scholar. The article is meant for scientific
audience as well as for general public. The author has strictly followed APA format
for presentation of this paper. Random sampling method is used for selecting
samples. The hypotheses clearly are directional because the author seemed to
know the results before and which is why he formed null hypotheses. The reason
for conducting the study is stated in title itself which is, to study stress among
employed women and housewives and its management through PMRT and mindful
breathing technique. The tabulated data was analyzed using mean; SD and t test;
therefore the inferential statistics used justifies the obtained results.

The inferences of are logically drawn from obtained calculations. Tables also
indicate the findings. All the references are mentioned in APA format. Also, the
author does not mention his subjective view in any of the statement.

Limitations

1. Focus of the study is more on employed women.

2. Conveniently formed null hypothesis.
3. Alternate hypothesis was not formed.
4. Treatment was not given to housewives.
5. In discussion part 1st hypothesis was neither accepted nor rejected.

Utility

1. Technique is effective for all age groups.

2. Contemporary lifestyle diseases can be successfully tackled with practice of
these two techniques.
3. If these two techniques are practiced regularly by working population the
result will be extremely good. It will help to decrease the stress level, help to
stay healthy & focused on their tasks & increase productivity.
Final Comment

The author has taken up an interesting topic which relates to current lifestyle
issue especially in women. In recent years more and more women are coming to
take on many jobs. They have to manage their work as well as homely affairs
because of which they tend to go through more amount of stress as compared to
men. The paper shows the Psychological Study of Stress Among Employed
Women and Housewives & its Management through Progressive Muscular
relaxation Technique (PMRT) and Mindfulness Breathing.

The author tried to get positive outcome of the study because of which he gave
more emphasis on employed women who had stress level on the higher side than
housewives. Treatment was given only to employed women and not to housewives
because of that the number of participants in pretest and post test is not the same.
Outcome of the study would have been more productive if housewives were also
given the same techniques to practice.

Conclusion

Through the study of this paper it can be concluded that these two simple
methods i.e. Progressive Muscular Relaxation Technique and Mindfulness
Breathing proves the effectiveness of daily practice and also suggests indirectly
that if adopted as a part of our daily chores, we the human can beat the daily
stressors of our life.

These methods will also improve not only the physical health but also our
mental and emotional stability and understanding, so that we could live happily
then after.
References

Jacobson, Edmund. (1980). You Must Relax. Unwin Publication. London.

Jacobsons progressive relaxation technique. (2016). Guys and

St.Thomas.nhs. Retrieved on 23rd September,2017, from,
www.guysnadstthomas.nhs.uk/resouces/patient-inforamtion/cardio vascular/
jacobson-progressive-relaxation-technique.pdf

Kermane, M.M (2016). A Psychological Study On Stress Among Employed

Women And Housewives And Its Management Through Progressive
Muscular Relaxation Technique (PMRT) and Mindfulness Breathing.
Journal of psychology and psychotherapy 6: 244. doi: 10 4172?2161-1487.
1000244

Mcleod, S.A (2014). Aims and Hypotheses. Retrieved on October 3, 2017,

from, www.simplypsychlogy.org/aims-hypotheses.html

Null hypothesis.(n.d). Psychology wiki. Retrieved on October 3,2017, from,

psycolohy.wikia.com/wiki/Null_hypothesis

Zinn, J.K. (12th November, 2007). YouTube.com. Experience life. Retrieved

on 24th October, 2017, from, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
3nwwKbM-vJc

Zinn, J.K. (1994). Wherever you go there you are. Experience life. Retrieved
on 24th October,2017, from, https://erperiencelife.com/wp-content/ uploads/
2011/11/wherever-you-go-there-you-are.pdf

Zinn, J.K. (2013). Mindful. Retrieved on 29th September,2017, from,

https://www.mindful.org/wp-content/uploads/Mindful-Freemium_TIME.pdf