Abstract
A survey of local cancer patients revealed that humor was a frequently used complementary therapy which helped them cope with stress. Introductory research has suggested that humor can decrease the perception of stress and perhaps improve the immune system's response to disease causing agents. However, there are a very limited number of rigorous intervention studies which document these effects. Using psychoneuroimmunology as a framework, the effect of mirthful laughter on stress and natural killer (NK) cell cytotoxicity was measured. Since the beneficial effect of laughter on NK activity has limited documentation in healthy males and no documentation in females, a clinical study would have been premature.
Sigma Membership
Kappa Theta
Type
Dissertation
Format Type
Text-based Document
Study Design/Type
Randomized Controlled Trial
Research Approach
Quantitative Research
Keywords:
Stress Coping Tools, Healing with Humor, Cancer Patients
Advisor
Janice Zeller
Degree
Doctoral-Other
Degree Grantor
Rush University
Degree Year
1997
Recommended Citation
Bennett, Mary P., "The effect of mirthful laughter on stress and natural killer cell cytotoxicity" (2019). Dissertations. 544.
https://www.sigmarepository.org/dissertations/544
Rights Holder
All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.
All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.
All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.
Review Type
None: Degree-based Submission
Acquisition
Proxy-submission
Date of Issue
2019-09-25
Full Text of Presentation
wf_yes
Description
This dissertation has also been disseminated through the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. Dissertation/thesis number: 9802253; ProQuest document ID: 304394708. The author still retains copyright.