Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in the form of Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) Intervention on irrational Beliefs and Anxiety of adolescent girls with social anxiety

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 1. M.A general psychology, Payame Noor University (PNU), Mazandaran،Iran. mwlwdyastyrh@gmail.com. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3583-2942

2 MSC Clinical Psychology of Islamic Azad University of Birjand, Iranhesam.arian1995@gmail.com https://orcid.org/

3 MSC graduate of general psychology, faculty of Educational Sciences and PsychologyAllameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6586-3005

4 MSC graduate of general psychology, faculty of Educational Sciences and Psychology, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran. farzi2396@gmail.com. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9435-607X.

5 MSc. Clinical Psychology, Shahed University, Tehran, Iran. r.tagipoor@yahoo.com. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0108-0156

Abstract

The current study used cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in the form of rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) intervention on irrational beliefs and anxiety of adolescent girls with social anxiety. A quasi-experimental design was utilized in this study, which involved a control group, a pre-test, and a post-test of samples taken from clinics in Tehran, of which 28 adolescent girls with social anxiety were selected through a purposive sampling method from November to January 2020. There were 14 participants in each of the experimental and control groups. Afterward, they were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HARS) and The Attitudes and Belief Scale 2 (ABS-2) were applied as pre-intervention phases. The experimental group (n=14) was treated with rational-emotive behavior therapy, for ten weekly 90 minutes sessions, while the control group (n=14) did not receive any treatment. As part of descriptive statistics, we used indices such as means and standard deviations that assessed central and dispersion. The test for inferential statistics was the repeated measure ANCOVA. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS software (version 25). The significance level of the analysis was 0.05. Considering the results, there was a significant difference between the pretest and post-test results for irrational belief (89.44±34.82) and anxiety (81.67±27.09)indicating that the experimental group’s post-test scores were higher relative to their pre-test scores. Moreover, the experimental group’s post-test scores of anxiety decreased from the pre-test (81.67±27.09) to the post-test (52.48±15.54).

Keywords


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