Effectiveness of music therapy on occupational stress among working women in selected shoe company at Vellore

“Effectiveness of Music Therapy on Occupational Stress Among Working Women in Selected Shoe Company At Vellore” Occupational stress is a common work place problem experienced by all professionals, irrespective of their nature of work. Occupation stress can be defined as the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirement of the job does not match the capabilities, resources or need of the worker. The job stress can leads to poor health and even injury. Generally symptoms for occupational stress are categorized into three. They are psychological, emotional as well as physical symptoms. Psychological symptoms are emotional as well as cognitive problems, which would affect self -esteem and self-confidence. Some of the psychological symptoms are depression, anxiety, boredom, frustration, isolation etc. Other physical symptoms include allergies, skin disease, head ache, sleep disturbances etc. The behavioural symptoms are increased snapping at others, withdrawing from contact with others and alcoholism. This study is an effort to assess the occupational stress and music therapy employed by the shoe workers to cope up with the stress. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY To assess the level of occupational stress before and after music therapy among working women at selected shoe company. To assess the effectiveness of music therapy on occupational stress among working women at selected shoe company. To find out the association between effectiveness of music therapy on working women with selected demographic variable. 89 NULL HYPOTHESIS H01: There is no significant difference between per -test and post-test in the level of stress., H02: There is no significant between music therapy and occupational stress. A pre-experimental was used among 60 subjects from the selected shoe company. A job stress scale and demographic data was used to collect data. The data obtained were analysed and interpreted in terms of the objectives and null hypothesis of the study. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis; the level of significance was set at 0.05 level. MAJOR FINDINGS OF THE STUDY Among the 60 samples regarding the symptoms of stress 60 percent had moderate stress of the sample (36) and 40 percent had severe stress level of the sample (24). But after the music therapy, 83 percent had copable stress level of the sample (50), and 17 per cent had mild stress level of the sample (10) .The mean percentage of the pre-test was 75.65 of the sample 60 and the mean percentage of the post - test was 33.68 of the sample 60. The standard deviation of the pre-test was 9.99 of the sample 60 and the standard deviation of the post test was 7.04 of the sample 60. The study finding show that, the mean post - level of occupational stress scores (33.68 ± 7.04) was lower than the mean pre-test score (75.65 ±9.99). Hence, the null hypotheses H1 were accepted so music therapy was found to be effective in reducing the occupational stress.The was no significant difference between the pre-test and post-test were tested by using paired „t „ value 28.78 (P<0.05 ) indicates that there was no significant difference between pre-test and post-test stress score.There was no significant between music therapy and occupational stress. It was evident from the present study that the chi-square 90 valve computed for age, marital status, religion, type of family, number of duty hours per day, resting hours per day, number of dependent, work experience, personal habits and present health status indicates that there was no significant association between use of music therapy and occupational stress. But the education and monthly income demographic variables showing that significance is present. therefore the investigator partially accept and partially reject it. Thus it clearly shows that practice of music therapy was effective in decreasing the occupational stress level among the sample. From the finding of the study can be concluded that majority of the working women had moderate and severe stress level of occupational stress. music therapy was found to be effectiveness in reducing the level of occupational stress among working women in selected shoe company, vellore. RECOMMENDATIONS Based on the research findings the following recommendations can be made: The same study can be done on a larger sample and also at different settings. A similar study can be conducted by using experimental and control group. A comparative study can be done to assess the stress level of women and men. A study can be under taken to evaluate the knowledge after a planned teaching program