Nursing students' perceptions and attitudes about humor and its incorporation into nursing practice

Abstract

Humor is beginning to be seriously recognized as a basic human need and acknowledged for the adaptive behavior it is defining. Research focusing on the use of humor in nursing is limited and the use of humor by nursing students has not been investigated. The purpose of this study was to describe nursing students' perceptions and attitudes about humor and their use of humor in nursing practice. A questionnaire, designed for this study, was used to collect data in three main areas: (1) humor's value as perceived by the nursing students, (2) the activities of nursing students which reflected the use of humor in their care, and (3) curricular emphasis on humor. Of the 100 enrolled Junior and Senior baccalaureate nursing students, 89% volunteered to participate in this descriptive study. The data was analyzed using correlation coefficients and chi-square analysis. The large majority of the students viewed their sense of humor as "strong" but their beliefs about humor as a coping strategy and as a nursing intervention were less clear. This study found that the clinical use of humor by the nursing students was generally nonexistent and curricular emphasis on humor elicited overwhelmingly negative responses. The research offers information for the population surveyed and has important implications for nursing practice, education, and research.