The Effect of Mindfulness Practices on Positive Thinking and Stress Coping Behaviors of Earthquake Survivor Nursing Students

Disaster; They are natural, technological or human-induced events that cause physical, economic and social losses for all or certain segments of the society, and stop or interrupt normal life and human activities. Disasters are often unavoidable. They often come suddenly and cause great suffering to the survivors. As natural disasters, especially earthquakes occur frequently in Turkey; cause human and economic losses. The 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes in Kahramanmaraş, which occurred in February 2023 and are described as the disaster of the century, affected ten provinces, namely Gaziantep, Hatay, Osmaniye, Adıyaman, Adana, Malatya, Kilis, Diyarbakır, Şanlıurfa and Elazığ, apart from the epicenter. Nursing students who were exposed to this earthquake were adversely affected physically, psychologically, socially and economically. The psychological effects of severe traumatic events such as earthquakes are not seen in all people to the same degree. However, the reactions of individuals to traumatic situations differ in terms of both their positive thinking skills and their ability to use stress coping mechanisms.

Positive thinking is the ability to see the bright side of things and makes people more creative and constructive. Approaching events positively and evaluating them with positive thoughts also affect the quality of individuals' daily lives. Positive thinking is also linked to positive emotions, optimism, hope, joy, and happiness. Positive thinking is one of the factors that affect the quality of life and relationships. Individuals with positive thinking characteristics always keep the expectation that good events will happen, and their perspectives and approaches to events are in this direction. Individuals who have such expectations are individuals who can adapt to distressing situations or difficulties more easily than those who do not.

In this way, the individual can gain a more optimistic perspective, reduce the amount of stress he experiences and strengthen the mechanism of coping with stress.

Many studies show that; Positive thinking skills are an important factor in coping with stress and anxiety, problem solving, happiness, academic performance and even health. The fact that positive thinking skills and mechanisms for coping with stress have such an important role in human life and behavior made us think that we can also benefit from mindfulness practices in strengthening these concepts. The study was shaped within this framework and it was aimed to reveal the effect of mindfulness practices on the positive thinking skills of nursing students and the level of coping mechanisms with stress.