Abstract

TOMAS, Catarina  and  GOMES, José Carlos. Effectiveness evaluation of a program of skills development in adolescents in order to the promotion of mental health. Revista Portuguesa de Enfermagem de Saúde Mental [online]. 2015, n.spe2, pp.15-20. ISSN 1647-2160.

BACKGROUND: Prevention in mental illness aims to enable people with the skills and abilities necessary to achieve developmental goals positively, as well as develop appropriate self-esteem, mastery, welfare and social inclusion. AIM: The main goal for this study is to evaluate the efficacy of a skills development intervention (resilience and self-concept) in teenagers between 13 and 15 years old. METHODS: It was made a longitudinal, quasi-experimental pre-test post-test design with a control group study, applying a skills development program, with 7 sessions of 45 minutes. The population was composed by adolescent students in the 8th grade of a group of schools in Leiria, and the selected sample consists in half of the students in two classes (test and control groups). A self-administered questionnaire was used before and after the intervention to evaluate the results, with socio-demographic questions, the PIERS-HARRIS Children’s Self-Concept Scale 2 and the California Healthy Kids Resilience Assessment Module. RESULTS: After the intervention, it was found significant statistical differences between the two groups in some factors of the evaluated skills, being the values of the test group higher. There were also differences between the pre and post intervention moments, suggesting those results the success and efficacy of the applied intervention. CONCLUSIONS: The intervention performed, focusing on the evaluation of two skills in adolescents, promoted its development tenuously, being suggested the replication of the same intervention and study in similar samples in order to validate the results.

Keywords : Health promotion; Adolescent; Primary prevention.

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