The Effectiveness of Self-encouraging Education on Psychological Hardiness and Social Development in Students with General Anxiety Disorder

The main characteristic of General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is anxiety and worry about several events. About 25% of individuals referring to anxiety disorder treatment clinics and almost 12% of patients referring to psychiatric clinics suffer from GAD. It is a risk factor for various psychiatric disorders, especially depression and alcohol abuse; the diagnosis and treatment of such faulty loops are associated with a significant preoccupation. GAD is among the most prevalent anxiety disorders in the general population and clinical groups. Considering the importance of GAD, this study aimed to determine the effects of self–encouraging education on psychological hardiness and social development in students with GAD.

This study was quasi–experimental with a pretest–posttest design and a control group. The statistical population included all 13– to 15–year–old girls in the ninth district of Tehran City, Iran, in the academic year of 2018–2019. Thirty girls diagnosed with GAD (by a specialist and according to the diagnostic criteria for GAD based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders–V) with a score higher than the cutoff score in the GAD–7 scale who have met the inclusion criteria of the study were selected, as the study participants. They were then randomly assigned to two experimental groups (n=15) and a control group (n=15). The inclusion criteria were having GAD, being 13 to 15 years old, and receiving no other medical and psychological treatments. Also, the exclusion criteria included the presence of organic and mental disorders or psychotic disorders, not regularly participating in educational classes, not doing homework, and not completing questionnaires. To collect the required data, before and after the training, they completed the Psychological Hardiness Questionnaire (Kiamarsy et al., 1998) and Social Development Scale (Keramati, 2003). Then, eight 60–minute sessions of educational intervention were held for the experimental group; however, the controls received no training. The obtained data were analyzed in SPSS 22 by the multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) at a significance level of 0.01.

The results showed that in the posttest, the mean scores of the variables of psychological hardiness (competition, control, and commitment) (p<0.001) and social development (p<0.001) of the experimental group increased significantly compared to the control group.

Based on the research results, self–encouraging training effectively improves the psychological hardiness and social development of students with GAD.