Background: There are numerous difficulties that nursing students must overcome in the nursing practice environment. This circumstance mainly impacts the happiness and stress levels of nursing students who lack clinical practice. Aim: In this study aimed to examine the effect of laughter yoga (LY) on nursing students' happiness and stress levels attending to clinical practice for the first-time. Method: In this randomized controlled trial, a totally 50 nursing students were included from a nursing school in Turkey. Data were collected between December 2022-January 2023 via The Happiness Scale and the Perceived Stress Scale for Nursing Students. A total of eight LY lessons for 4 weeks were practiced to the laughter group (LG). Result: The Happiness Scale's means were compared between the groups before and after the intervention, and the results revealed a significant increase (p < 0.05). There was not a significant difference in the stress scale scores between both the groups following LG and clinical practice (t: -1.780; p = 0.081). However, the stress scores of the LG decreased significantly after the LY sessions were completed (b: 3.595; p = 0.001). Conclusion: LY can be an effective method to be used to help increase happiness and reduce the stress of nursing students for first-time entering clinical practice.
Keywords: clinical practice; happiness; laughter yoga; nursing student; stress.