Determining the Effectiveness of Compassion-focused Treatment Package, Emotion-focused Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Distress Tolerance among Adolescents with Aggressive Behaviors: A Pilot Study

Psychosocial, cognitive, and biological changes during adolescence provide numerous opportunities for adolescents to engage in behaviors that are implicitly important in adopting or endangering a healthy lifestyle. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the educational package based on three methods of treatment focused on compassion, emotion and acceptance, and commitment to distress tolerance in adolescents with aggressive behaviors.

The present study was quasi-experimental with pre-test-post-test design, quarterly follow-up, and a control group. Participants included 30 female high school students in Ramsar city in 2019-2020, who were selected via purposful sampling method and then randomly divided into experimental and control groups. Data were obtained using Aggression Questionnaire and Distress Tolerance Questionnaire. The experimental group was trained for twelve sessions, but the control group did not receive any training. Data were analyzed using univariate analysis of covariance via SPSS software version 22.

In the experimental group, the mean (SD) score of anxiety tolerance increased from 45.5 (1.3) in the pre-test to 48.8 (1.5) in the post-test (P<0.001) and 49.1 (1.7) in the follow-up, which indicates that the effect of the intervention was stable (P<0.001). In the control group, the mean (SD) score of anxiety tolerance increased from 44.2 (1.7) in the pre-test to 45.2 (1.1) in the post-test and 45.1 (0.1) in the follow-up, which was not statistically significant.

The training package based on compassion-focused therapy (CFT), emotion-focused therapy (EFT), and acceptance and commitment-based therapy (ACT) was effective in increasing the anxiety tolerance among adolescents with aggressive behaviors.