Effects of Bibliotherapy Counselling Techniques on Stress Management among Students in Schools of Nursing in Kaduna State, Nigeria

This study investigated the effects of bibliotherapy counselling techniques on stress among students in nursing schools in Kaduna state, Nigeria. Two hypotheses were formulated and tested. A quasi-experimental design involving pre-test and post-test was adopted for the study. The population consisted of 3 Schools of Nursing, from which a sample size of 2 schools was selected. A purposive sampling technique was used to select 30 participants with a medium stress level. Fifteen (15) participants were selected from each school, totalling 30. The Stress Scale adapted from Balarabe (2007) was the instrument used to collect data. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the demographic data of the participants. The hypotheses were tested using a paired sample t-test at a 0.05 significance level. Findings revealed a significant effect of the Bibliotherapy Counselling Technique on the emotional (p=.000) and psychological (p=.000) components of stress. Based on the findings, it was concluded that bibliotherapy counselling techniques effectively reduced the emotional and psychological components of stress among students. The study recommended that counsellors collaborate with librarians to create a specialized collection of books and materials that support BTCT. This ensures students have easy access to high-quality resources tailored to their needs. Government and research centres should encourage ongoing research into BTCT within nursing schools to explore new and innovative ways to apply bibliotherapy. This could include studying the effects of different genres of literature, varying lengths of interventions, and combining BTCT with other stress reduction techniques.