Stress and Health: Achieving Objectives - Essay Example

1. To enable 50 health care professionals to effectively deal with increasing stressful events within five Boston correctional facilities housing 50,000 inmates in need of health care.

• The goal of this behavior objective is to ensure that health care professionals within the Boston correctional facilities are vigilant in handling stressful events occurring within the facilities that host more than 50,000 offenders.

2. To present scientific methods of handling stress within the job environment of 50 health care professionals working in five Boston correctional facilities to 90%, handle stressors presented by the 50,000 inmates within the area.

According to the Smart Objectives listed above, the activities associated with each of the objectives define the rationale of the objective. For objective 1, the target sample will be selected with regard to the scope of the intervention. This involves the sending of applications to various correctional facilities’ health care professionals. The professionals will have to fill have forms indicating their interest in the program as well as giving the go-ahead to be interviewed and trained outside their working hours. In addition, the sample size of 50 will be assembled with respect to 5 facilities whose health care professionals qualify for stress management education. The education program will comprise a list of expected stressors with reference to correctional facility incidents; hence, it is considered an activity in researching and compiling a list of all possible stressors.

            Objective 2 will involve a Likert-5 scale for use in measuring the practitioners’ probability of running to actual stressful events. The preliminary evaluation will enable the program’s director to measure competency levels in stress management. The initial level of competency will use scientific research for supporting theories, concepts, and methodologies. To increase the initial competency in stress management or defense mechanisms to 90%, the education program will open grounds for exploring manageable defense mechanisms that coincide with the facility code of conduct (Kenneth, 1987).

            Smart objectives are achievable and thus progress towards the realization of an objective depends on evaluation of the tasks and their levels of achievability. To evaluate the achievability levels of objective 1, a self-evaluation form will be used. The form will comprise of two sets of answers to questions such as ‘How do you react to incidents involving inmate injuries, fatalities, or deaths?’ The answer sets to this question will involve a Likert-5 scale comprising positive and negative feedback. Answer sets will include rated answers such as five for ‘very calm’, 4 for ‘calm’, 3 for ‘unsure’, 2 for ‘terrified’, and 1 for ‘very terrified’. With regards to objective 2, the evaluation will be linked with objective 1 outcome. This means, with reference to the applied stress management education, varying stress management levels will indicate varying effectiveness of scientific approaches as well as including new stressors to the target list of stressors (Dorothy, 1990).

Lessons from Course

• Academic Research: Throughout this course, I have been assigned tests and assignments that have required academic research. Throughout these assignments, I have developed knowledge on how to use different research methods such as qualitative and quantitative. The knowledge I have acquired will be applied in a professional setting to carry out the research required to accomplish professional duties
• Effects of Stress: Within the work environment, various social, economic, and medical among others have specific stressors with different defense mechanisms. Hence fore, in my professional line of duty, I will apply stress management defenses where necessary.
• Development of Smart Goals: For projects and duties to be successful, goals and missions are set to mitigate resources and benefits. As a lesson, my professional objectives and goals demand deliverable goals and missions whose evaluation is based on smart objectives aimed at infusing wise spending and time management (Freedman, 2012).