Efficacy of Emotion Regulation Training on Coping Strategies among Female Elementary School Students

Background and Emotion regulation skill is one of the most necessary skills in maintenance of mental health. Present study aimed to investigate the efficacy of emotion regulation training on coping strategies among female elementary school students. Present research was a quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest control group design. Study sample consisted of 24 fifth grade female students who were studying in the schools of Qazvin in 2014-2015 academic year and gained the lowest scores in the Children’s Coping Behavior Questionnaire (Hernandez, 2008) and randomly assigned to experimental (n = 12) and control (n = 2) groups. Experimental group received eight 40-minute sessions of emotional regulation training, while control group received no training. The results of univariate analysis of covariance showed that emotion regulation training could significantly increase the mean scores of coping with problem (p = 0.001) and deviation of the problem (p = 0.05) in experimental group comparing to the control group. However, there was no significantly difference between experimental and control group in terms of destructive coping strategy (p = 0.15).Aaccording to the findings of this study, by learning these skills students will evaluate stressful situations less intimidating and use more appropriate coping strategies.