The Effectiveness of Communication Skills Training on Academic Self-efficacy and Social Phobia in Adolescent Females with Depression

Depression is one of the most common disorders in adolescence, which causes many problems, especially in the educational and social fields. Therefore, improvement of psychological characteristics of these people has been considered by many therapists. Psychologists believe that the importance of communicative skills during adolescence is such that its absence can be a serious threat to this group. Therefore, the present study aimed at investigating the effect of communication skills training on academic self-efficacy and social phobia in adolescent females with depression. The present study was experimental with pre-test-post-test design and control group. The statistical population consisted of all secondary school students in district 1 of Khorramabad, studying in the academic year of 2017, of which 40 had high-depression scores. A multi-stage cluster was selected and randomly assigned to two groups of control and intervention (each group with 20 participants). The intervention group received 10 sessions of 70 minutes of communication skills training, and the control group was placed in the waiting list. The groups completed the Gink and Morgan academic self-efficacy questionnaire and the Conservative Social Phobia Scale as a pre-test and post-test. Data were analyzed using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and SPSS-21 software. The findings showed that there was a significant difference between the test and intervention groups in the post-test phase between the educational self-efficacy and social fears. In other words, communication skills training increased depression in adolescent female’s self-efficacy and reduced social Phobia (P < 0.01). Regarding the effect of communication skills training on academic self-efficacy and social phobia, it is recommended for counselors, therapists, and clinical psychologists to use this method to increase academic self-efficacy and reduce social Phobia in depressed adolescents.