Within the pediatric hospitalization experience, fear and anxiety are two emotions commonly felt by children of all ages. Hospitalized children can greatly benefit from interventions designed to help them cope with these emotions throughout their medical experiences. This study draws on each of our clinical experiences as volunteers at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, and uses a qualitative analysis of three semi-structured interviews with currently employed Child Life Specialists to understand and analyze the use of medical play, a form of play intervention with a medical theme or medical equipment. We explore the goals and benefits of medical play for hospitalized pediatric patients, the process of using medical play as an intervention, including the activity design process, the assessments and adjustments made throughout the child’s hospitalization, and the considerations and limitations to implementing medical play activities. Ultimately, we found that the element of fun that defines play can be channeled into medical play activities implemented by skilled Child Life Specialists, who are experts in their field, in clinical settings to promote several different and beneficial goals, including pediatric patient coping.

The following paper explores the various effects of stress on the endocrine system. Many understand that being stressed can jeopardize maintaining adequate health, but what specifically happens when humans are stressed? Why does stress affect human health? This paper delves into background information, previous research, and the depths to which stress negatively affects the body. The effects stress has on the endocrine system, specifically on the hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid axis (HPT) and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA), is discussed, and additionally, at home de-stressing methods are researched. The study included a set of participants at Arizona State University. The method took place over the course of 2 weeks: one normal week, and the other with the implementation of a de-stressing method. The normal week involved the participants living their daily lives with the addition of a stress-measuring survey, while the second week involved implementing a de-stressing method and stress-measuring survey. The purpose of this study was to discover if there was a correlation between performing these relaxation activities and decreasing stress levels in ASU students. The results found that students reported they felt more relaxed and calm after the activities. Overall, this thesis provides information and first hand research on the effects of stress and stress-reducing activities and discusses the importance of maintaining lower stress levels throughout everyday life.

The following study was designed to better understand the perceived stress levels and common coping strategies of nursing students attending Arizona State University during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) transactional theory of stress and coping suggests that stress is a product of the transaction between an individual and their complex environment. During the COVID-19 pandemic nursing students were forced to close and utilize online learning methods to ensure the safety of students, faculty, and staff. The current study identifies the perceived stress levels and common coping strategies of undergraduate nursing students at Arizona State University. A survey was sent to the identified population which asked participants to rate their stress level of attending nursing school during COVID-19 on a scale from one to ten. In addition, the Carver’s COPE inventory was utilized to determine common coping strategies among the nursing student population. The results of this study indicate that the closure of universities, and utilization of online learning methods increased stress levels of nursing students attending Arizona State University during COVID-19. In addition, nursing students most common coping strategies were identified as the use of planning, a problem-focused coping strategy, reinterpretation and growth, and active coping.