The Effectiveness of Behavioral Activation Therapy on Metacognitive Beliefs and Concerns of Physical Image of Depressed Girl Students

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of behavioral activation therapy on meta-cognitive beliefs and worries about the physical image of depressed girl students. The research method was quasi-experimental with a pretest-posttest design with the control group. A total of 30 undergraduate students of the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad were selected and randomly assigned to the same experimental and control groups after an initial clinical evaluation based on the criteria of the research. The experimental group received eight sessions of 90 minutes (weekly twice) of the behavioral activation group therapy group; the control group was placed on the waiting list. To collect information in two stages, pre-test and post-test, Wales et al. (2004) meta-cognitive questionnaire and the Littleton and Associates (200) Physical Image Worry Questionnaire were used. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance. The findings of this study showed that there is a significant difference between the mean scores of post-test of the experimental groups and the control group in the positive meta-cognitive beliefs about fear and concern of the body image. Since gaining a higher score in these two variables indicates the severity of these symptoms in people with depression, the mean of these scores in the intervention group in the post-test stage was significantly lower than the control group. Therefore, it can be said that the use of therapy techniques for treatment of behavioral activation is effective in reducing the positive meta-cognitive beliefs about worries and concerns about the physical image of depressed girl students