The Effect of Assertiveness Training on Loneliness and Social Anxiety in Female Students with Nomophobia Disorder

This research was aimed to investigating the effect of assertiveness training on loneliness and social anxiety in female students with nomophobia disorder. The research was a semi-experimental one with pretest-posttest design and control group. The research population included all the female high school students of Karaj in the first semester of 2018-2019 academic year. Via random cluster sampling method, 30 female students of high school third grade who had this disorder score of higher than the cut-off score (60) were selected and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups each of which included 15 people. The subjects of the experimental group received the assertiveness training group program during eight 90-min sessions, 2 sessions a week. The control group was put in the waiting list. Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale for Adults DiTomasso et al, Social Phobia Inventory Connor et al, and Nomophobial Questionnaire Yildirim & Correia, were used. Multivariate analysis of covariance was used for analyzing the data. Results of MANCOVA showed that with the controlled effect of pretest a significant difference between the participants of experimental and control groups in terms of the mean scores of the components of loneliness including; romantic loneliness, emotional loneliness, and social loneliness and the components of social anxiety including; fear, avoidance, physiological symptoms in posttest. According to the results of this study, it is suggested that psychologists and counselors use the results of this study to reduce the loneliness and social anxiety in students.