Despite stressors and demands nursing students experience as they begin clinical practice, study findings support the use of biofeedback and mindfulness meditation interventions to assist nursing students in managing stress and anxiety.

Purpose. It has been well documented that nursing students across the world experience stress and anxiety throughout their education and training. The purpose of this randomized controlled study is to investigate the impact of biofeedback intervention program on nursing students' levels of stress and anxiety during their first clinical training. Methods. Participants consisted of 60 second-year baccalaureate nursing students. The 30 participants in the biofeedback group received training on how to use the biofeedback device to assist in stress and anxiety management for 5 weeks while the 30 in the control group did not receive any training. Findings. Results indicated that the biofeedback group was able to maintain the stress level while the control group had a significant increase in the stress level over the 5-week period of clinical training. Additionally, the biofeedback group had a significant reduction in anxiety, while the control group had a moderate increase in anxiety. Conclusions. The better the nursing students can manage their stress and anxiety, the more successful they can be in their clinical training. Ultimately, the more psychologically healthy the nursing students are, the more likely they will flourish and graduate to become productive and contributing members of the nursing profession.

Interventions to increase the vaccination rate should focus on creating positive attitude toward getting vaccinated against HPV through behavioral beliefs. Increasing the subjective norm will be beneficial.

Globally, graduate students have been found to have high prevalence of mental health problems. With increasing severity of mental health problems on university campuses and limited resources for mental health treatment, alternative interventions are needed. This study investigated the use of biofeedback training to help reduce symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression. A sample of 60 graduate students in public health nursing was randomly assigned to either the biofeedback intervention or the control group. Results indicated that biofeedback intervention was effective in significantly reducing the levels of stress, anxiety, and depression over the 4-week period, while the control group had increases in symptoms of anxiety and depression over the same timeframe. As future leaders in the public health nursing arena, the more psychologically healthy the graduate students in public health nursing are, the better the public health nursing professionals they will be as they go forth to serve the community after graduation.

Participants were a convenience sample of college women (n=384) ages 18 to 26 attending a large, public university in Southern California. An electronic self-administered survey was utilized to collect data. The theory of planned behavior provided a framework for understanding the factors associated with vaccine uptake and with post-vaccine sexual behaviors. Results: College women had good HPV/HPV vaccine knowledge. Over 90% of vaccinees and non-vaccinees knew that Pap test is still needed after the vaccination and an HPV vaccine does not protect against all STIs. Both groups also had positive attitudes toward mandatory vaccination. However, knowledge and attitudes toward the vaccine were not directly linked to the outcome predictors-intention to obtain the vaccine and vaccine uptake. While attitude toward getting vaccinated, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control were correlated with the outcome predictors, subjective norms consistently predicted intention to obtain HPV vaccine and vaccine uptake. There were no significant differences in sexual behaviors (numbers of sexual partners in a life time, numbers of sexual partners in the past 12 months, condom use, condom use frequency) between non-vaccinees and vaccinees. The numbers of sexual partners before and after vaccination among vaccinees were also not significantly different. Conclusions: Strategies to ensure that those who are eligible for catch-up vaccination are vaccinated should include attention to college women's subjective norms. Vaccine mandatory proposal would not be unacceptable to this population and concerns that the HPV vaccine encourages unsafe sexual behaviors and practices among college aged women may be disregarded.