The Effectiveness of Schema-based Family Education Program on Emotion Management in Maladapted Adolescents

The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of schema-based family education programs in emotion management in maladapted adolescents. The present study is applied research regarding the purpose and quasi-experimental regarding the data collection method, with a randomly selected two-group design and pre-test and post-test. The statistical population of this study consisted of adolescents with behavioral problems of Bojnord city. Participants were the students who received the highest scores in the Achenbach system of empirically-based assessment (CBCL) among the students of three schools. They were then randomly divided into two groups of control and experiment, with 15 people in each group. The cohabitation of parents, general health of participating parents, and exclusion criteria, including acute or chronic physical illness or any other medical illness that precluded attendance in meetings, receiving other psychological interventions, undergoing a similar program, and receiving medication. Participants in both groups received CERQ and BERQ questionnaires as pre-test and post-tests to complete before and after the intervention program. The experimental group was trained in schema-based family education for 13 sessions. The control group did not receive any intervention during this period. The results of research on behavioral emotion regulation showed that schema-based family education program was significantly effective at p= 0.01 on the components of “withdrawal” and “seeking social support” and, at p= 0.05, did not affect the components of “seeking distraction,” “actively approaching,” and “ignoring.” Findings also showed a significant effect on the components of cognitive emotion regulation, “adapted strategies,” and “non-adapted strategies” at p= 0.01. Schema-based family education programs can sometimes enhance the components of emotion management in adolescents with behavioral problems and can be effective in prevention and rehabilitation. The results showed that the schema-based family education programs were effective in both components of cognitive emotion regulation and some components of behavioral emotion regulation (withdrawal and actively approaching).