Check out the various scholarly projects that have been completed by master's students in the UOGRADAT program!

Kim Detwiler (2007)

Master's Thesis

Religion as a means of coping with stress among athletic trainers

Objective: Burnout has become a topic of interest among athletic trainers in recent years.  The ability to cope with stress is very important in the prevention of burnout as well as dealing with the day-to-day stress that is inherent in athletic training.  Religious faith has been shown in the literature to be helpful in coping with stress.  We examined the relationship between religious faith and the ability to cope with stress among athletic trainers. 

Design and Setting: A survey created by the primary author was emailed to 1,000 certified athletic trainers.  The survey had several components: demographic information, perceived stress, job stress, social support, religious faith, and religious practice.

Subjects:  There were 93 female subjects and 91 male subjects in our study.  One-hundred and twenty five subjects were certified athletic trainers with a master’s degree or above, 39 subjects were certified athletic trainers with a bachelor’s degree and not currently in school, 7 subjects were certified athletic trainers in graduate school, and 13 subjects answered other.  Subjects worked in the traditional or clinical setting.

Measurements: We used a Perceived Stress Survey and the Athletic Training Issues Survey (both adapted from previous studies) to examine stress level of athletic trainers.  We used three questions from the Social Support Questionnaire to examine social support.  Lastly, we created a Religious Practice Inventory which resulted in each subject receiving a Faith/Coping Score, a Subjective Faith Score, and Religious Practice Score.  The subjects were grouped into Non-Religious and Religious groups for data analysis, and the Religious group was further broken down into high/low Subjective Faith and high/low Religious Practice groups. 

Results: Our data showed no relationship between religious faith or religious practice and stress level.  We also found the relationship between social support and stress level to be insignificant. 

Conclusions: Our data show that religious faith alone is not an effective means of coping with stress among athletic trainers. 

Key Words: Religion, stress, coping, athletic trainer, social support.

Eric Sorenson (2006)

Title

"Prostaglandin E2 Production Associated with Exercise-induced Muscle Damage"

Abstract

Purpose: Symptoms of exercise-induced muscle damage (EMD) include soreness and stiffness appearing 24-48 hours after exercise, referred to as delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), a prolonged reduction in muscle strength and range of motion, an increase in arm circumference, and the appearance of muscle proteins in the blood (4,9,10). Previous research indicates that prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) may be the most likely chemical stimulant associated with increased sensitivity of pain receptors leading to DOMS (13). The first specific aim of this study was to confirm the presence of EMD following a specific eccentric exercise protocol. The second specific aim was to measure the change in PGE2 following the onset of muscle damage. Methods: Using a motor driven isokinetic dynamometer, subjects (n=5) performed 2 sets of 35-repetitions of eccentric, isokinetic elbow flexion at 30°/sec. Pain, isometric strength of the elbow flexors, arm circumference, and relaxed arm angle were measured immediately prior to, immediately after, and at 24-, 48-, 72- and 168-hours (7-d) post-exercise. Twenty-four hour urine samples were collected immediately before, and at 24-hour intervals for three days following the exercise protocol. Urine samples were tested for the average levels of PGE2 within each 24-hour collection period. Results: Following eccentric exercise, all subjects exhibited signs of muscle damage. The Pearson correlation coefficients between baseline PGE2 values, and 24- and 48-hour PGE2 values exhibited significant associations. Conclusion: These data indicate that the variability of the PGE2 values post-exercise can be explained by the baseline measures. Further research should include a larger sample size with subjects stratified based upon baseline measures of PGE2 to elaborate on the trends found in this study.