Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

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Asghari A. The Effects of Socio-Cognitive Skills Training on Psychological Disturbance and Subjective Well-Being in Adolescents With Undesirable Family Relationships. MEJDS 2020; 10 :182-182
URL: http://jdisabilstud.org/article-1-1618-en.html

Background & Objectives: Family is the most significant and first structure in child–rearing. Families whose parents are constantly involved in problems and fail to respect each other provide the worst psychological environment for child–raising. Accordingly, these children are more comfortable in the livestock they have outgrown because of family problems, i.e., because of delinquency, substance abuse, theft, and so on. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the effects of socio–cognitive problem–solving skills training on reducing psychological distress and increasing mental well–being among adolescents with undesirable family relationships.
Methods: This was a quasi–experimental study with a pretest–posttest and a control group design. The statistical population of the study consisted of all secondary high school students in Bojnourd City, Iran, in the academic year of 2016–2017. The research sample consisted of 30 adolescents with undesirable family relationships who were selected from the study population after screening. They were randomly selected and assigned to the experimental and control groups. The necessary data were obtained using the Family Assessment Device (Epstein et al., 1983), Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995), and Subjective Wellbeing Questionnaire (Keyes & Magyar–Moe, 2003). Additionally, the obtained data were analyzed using Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) in SPSS. The significance level was set at 0.05.
Results: The collected results indicated that the scores of the experimental group significantly differed from those of the controls. Accordingly, in terms of depression, the mean±SD score of the experimental group was decreased from 12.33±2.46 from the pretest phase to 4.93±2.18 at the posttest. Moreover, concerning anxiety, the mean±SD score of the experimental group decreased from 12.80±1.65 at the pretest to 5.00±2.32 at the posttest. With respect to stress, the mean±SD score of the experimental group decreased from 13.73±2.63 at pretest to 6.53±2.72 at the posttest. Additionally, in terms of emotional well–being, the mean±SD score of the experimental group increased from 35.26±5.94 at the pretest to 43.53±4.65 at the posttest. Besides, concerning the psychological well–being, the mean±SD score of the experimental group increased from 59.93±16.99 at the pretest to 94.00±7.78 at the post–test. With respect to social well–being, the mean±SD score of the experimental group increased from 47.73±12.70 at the pretest to 79.66±12.57 at the post–test. However, the control group demonstrated negligible changes in the scores of all explored variables. The Eta–square data revealed that approximately 0.60 of the psychological distress changes in investigated adolescents with poor family relationship quality were impaired by cognitive problem–solving skills. Furthermore, the Eta–squared results signified that approximately 0.64 of the psychological well–being of adolescents with poor family relationship quality could be explained by socio–cognitive problem–solving skills. In addition, the MANCOVA results reported that after adjusting the pretest scores, the mean posttest scores significantly differed between the study groups in all components of psychological disturbance (p<0.001).
Conclusion: Based on the current study findings, the presented socio–cognitive problem–solving skills training could reduce psychological problems and improve mental wellbeing in the studied subjects. As a result, the study participants were better adapted to life's challenges and could more effectively cope with distress.