Effectiveness Comparison of “Resilience Skills Training” and “Positive Thinking” on Reducing Suicidal Ideation in Male University Students

According to the available evidence, the suicide rate, especially among young people, has been increasing in recent years. Therefore, it seems necessary to take preventive approaches. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of two training methods of resilience skills and positive thinking in reducing suicidal ideation in male students of university.

In this semi-experimental study with pretest and posttest design with control group, 33 male students of Farhangian University in 2018 were selected by purposive sampling method and randomly divided into three groups of 11 people (two experimental groups and one control). The Beck Scale for Suicidal Ideation (BSSI) was used to collect data. The educational intervention for the first experimental group included the training of resilience skills and for the second experimental group included the training of positive thinking skills. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA), one-way analysis of covariance and post hoc test.

In post-test, the mean scores of suicidal ideation and its subscales in both experimental groups were significantly different from the control group (p<0.001). Also, there was a significant difference between the two groups of resilience skills and positive thinking skills in terms of mean scores of suicidal ideation (p=0.01) and subscales of suicidal tendency (p=0.001) and suicide preparation (p=0.001), but these two groups were not significantly different in terms of subscale of actual suicidal tendency (p=0.06).

Resilience skills training is more effective in reducing studentschr('39') suicidal ideation than positive thinking training.