Examining and Comparing the Effectiveness of Psychological Capital Training and Behavioral Activation Therapy on Depression among Female Dormitory Students

Numerous studies have shown that the prevalence of depression is high among Iranian students and therefore it is necessary to try to reduce it through different methods. This study endeavored to examine and comparing the effectiveness of psychological capital training and behavioral activation therapy on depression among female students of University of Isfahan dormitories in the second semester of the academic years 2018-2019.

The research design was quasi-experimental, pre-test and post-test with control group. Beck Depression Inventory (1961) was used to measure depression. The population included female students of dormitories of University of Isfahan in the second semester of the academic years 2018-2019. The sample size was 45 students who were selected by purposive sampling. Initially, the pre-test was conducted on 45 volunteers. They were then randomly assigned to experimental groups 1 and 2 and control group. Then, the two experimental groups received behavioral activation therapy and psychological capital training, respectively, but the control group not received intervention. After the intervention, post-test was administered for the three groups. Data were analyzed through covariance analysis.

The results showed significant difference between the post-test depression scores of the groups (P=0.002, F=7.73); paired comparisons showed that both psychological capital training (7.46±2.28) and as compared to the control group, behavioral activation therapy (7.82±2.27) reduced depression significantly (15.50±2.38) (P= 0.002, -8.14 and P=0.002,-7.78, respectively), but the two intervention groups did not differ significantly in depression scores.

Both behavioral activation therapy and psychological capital training reduced depression. Therefore, both types of interventions can be used to reduce dormitory studentschr('39') depression.