Date of Award
8-1-2014
Degree Name
Master of Science
Department
Behavior Analysis and Therapy
First Advisor
Dixon, Mark
Abstract
Use of restraint during crisis intervention is of great concern as these situations evoke stress responses in the direct care staff that respond to them. This stress response often leads to non- neutral reactions. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has been used to effectively de- literalize task-related stimuli in individuals that share similar physiological symptoms of stress to those that direct care staff might experience during crisis. The purpose of this study was to evaluate how an ACT intervention would improve direct care staff performance during crisis interventions and increase accuracy of incident report writing. Results indicated that four out of the six participants improved their performance following ACT training, while the most improvement was observed in accuracy in incident report writing. This study expands upon the limited research available on the utility of ACT in the workplace. Implications of this study suggest that ACT may be a beneficial intervention to increase staff performance during crisis.
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