Impact of exposure to rational career reflective training on work-related ethics among student-philosophers.

BACKGROUND: Teaching individuals at the early-career stage what and how to respect organizational codes of conduct is a good step in creating a democratic working environment. As a result, it is important to coach students in sustaining organizational well-being by seeking the truth, teaching the truth and upholding the truth. Currently, how these are taught in institutions of higher learning lacks structure. In fact, some graduate students are displaying work-deviant behaviors showing that they have poor perceptions of work-related ethics. Using this reason, we tested the impact of exposure to rational career reflective training on work-related ethics among student-philosophers. METHODS: This is a pretest, posttest with a follow-up pure experimental design was used. A total of 105 student-philosophers were recruited, assessed 3 times using Ethics and irrational beliefs measures, and coached by therapists. The participants were exposed to 12-session rational career reflective training. The data collected were subjected to a multivariate statistical analysis to test how effective the intervention was in changing negative perceptions about ethics. RESULTS: It was found that rational career reflective training changes negative perceptions about work-related ethics among student-philosophers. The effectiveness of rational career reflective training is not statistically influenced by gender and group interaction. Gender does not moderate the impact of the intervention. CONCLUSION: This study finally suggests that rational career reflective training effectively changes negative perceptions about ethics among student-philosophers. Thus, recommends the advancement of Ellis principles in other workplaces and across populations.

Effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy with yoga in reducing job stress among university lecturers.

Introduction: Job stress is highly prevalent in the workforce worldwide, and tends to threaten employees' physical and mental wellbeing, reducing organizational outcomes. The negative impacts of workplace stress on academics have been found to disproportionately interfere with both institutional research productivity and students' learning outcomes. This study analyzed data from a randomized control trial, to validate the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy combined with yoga in treating job-related stress among lecturers from two Universities in South-East, Nigeria. Methods: Participants included 93 academic staff members from two Federal Universities in Enugu and Ebonyi States in Nigeria. We assigned participants to Y-CBT (N = 46) and waitlist control (N = 47) groups using random sampling techniques. A 2-h Y-CBT program was delivered weekly for a period of 12 weeks. Two instruments were used to collect data for the study. Single Item Stress Questionnaire (SISQ) was employed to identify the potential participants, while the teachers' Stress Inventory (TSI) was served for data collection at baseline, post-intervention, and follow-up tests. Mean, standard deviations, t-test, statistics, and repeated measures Analysis of Variance, were used to analyze data for the study. Results: Results revealed that the perception of stressors and stress symptoms reduced significantly at post-test and follow-up assessments following Y-CBT intervention. Discussion and conclusion: The outcomes of this study support the prior that Y-CBT is valuable for harmonizing mind and body for a stable psychological state. The conclusion was that Y-CBT can minimize the perception of stressors and stress manifestation among university lecturers.

Stress in teachers of children with neuro-developmental disorders: Effect of blended rational emotive behavioral therapy.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Neuro-developmental disorders impose a wide range of learning barriers on learners, increasing stress among their teachers. Evidence attests to the heightened stress among teachers teaching children with such conditions. This study tested the efficacy of blended Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy in reducing job stress among teachers of children with neuro-developmental disorders in Abia State, Nigeria. METHOD: The current study adopted a group-randomized waitlist control trial design with pretest, post-test, and follow-up assessments. Participants (N = 83) included teachers of children with neuro-developmental disorders in inclusive and specialized schools. The blended Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy group participated in a 2 h intersession face-to-face and online Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) program weekly for 12 weeks. Data were collected using the Single Item Stress Questionnaire, Teachers' Stress Inventory, and Participants' Satisfaction questionnaire. The waitlisted group also received a blended Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy intervention after all data collection. Data collected at baseline; post-test as well as follow-up 1 and 2 evaluations were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, t-test statistics, repeated measures analysis of variance, and charts. RESULTS: Results revealed that the mean perceived stress, stress symptoms, and the total teachers' stress score of the blended Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy group at post-test and follow-up assessments reduced significantly, compared to the waitlisted group. Participants also reported a high level of satisfaction with the therapy and procedures. CONCLUSION: From the findings of this study, we conclude that blended Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy is efficacious in occupational stress management among teachers of children with neuro-developmental disorders.

Emotional impact of COVID-19 lockdown and mitigation options: A cross-sectional survey of households in Ebonyi State, Nigeria.

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) has continued to plague households, leading to lockdown problems. Adopting appropriate mitigation strategies can reduce the impact on family members. PURPOSE: To assess the emotional impact of COVID-19 epidemic lockdown and mitigation measures among households in Ebonyi State. METHODS: Cross-sectional survey design was used to study 516 participants. Emotional impact of COVID-19 lockdown (r = 0.73) and mitigation options (r = 0.92) questionnaire was used for data collection. Of the 516 copies of the questionnaire distributed, 493 copies (95.5% return rate) were used for data analysis. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, standard deviations, and t-tests. RESULTS: The data showed the emotional impact of the COVID-19 epidemic was high (2.97 ± 0.48) on households. They embraced friendly communication and communication with their partners, maintaining regular contact with their loved ones by phone, email, social media, or video conference to alleviate the COVID-19 lockdown. No significant differences were found in the emotional impact for location (p > 0.05). Significant differences were not observed in many gender-based mitigation options. Conversely, a significant difference existed in the mitigation options based on location (t = 3.143, p < 0.05). However, there was no significant difference in friendly interactions and communication with partners (t = 0.354, p > 0.05), finding opportunities to develop excellent and promising news and images (t = 0.770, p > 0.05) and maintaining regular communication with loved ones via phone, email, social media, and video conference (t = 0.448, p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: The emotional impact of COVID-19 confinement was significant on family life and was more prevalent among men and urban dwellers. There is need to organise an awareness campaign on fundamental ways to overcome emotional distress using media targeting family members to promote emotional health.

Proactive Personality and Social Support With Pre-retirement Anxiety: Mediating Role of Subjective Career Success.

The main objective of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of subjective career success (SCS) in the relationship between proactive personality, social support (SS), and pre-retirement anxiety. Using a two-wave longitudinal design, 624 pre-retirees were sampled (M = 56.49 years; SD = 4.56); of these, 237 (37.98%) were males and 387 (62.02%) were females. Measurement model and mediation test were performed using the SmartPLS and IBM SPSS Amos software. The result indicated that proactive personality, SS, and SCS showed negative relationships with the dimensions of pre-retirement anxiety (financial preparedness, social obligation, and social alienation). Subjective career success mediated the relationship between proactive personality and pre-retirement anxiety.