Effectiveness of a School-Based Coping Skills Program on Psychological Distress Among Adolescents

Abstract

Approximately half of the world's population, or more than 2.2 billion individuals, are children, and 16% of the global population are adolescents. Psychological distress is a major contributor to illness and disability among adolescents. Objective. To determine the prevalence of psychological distress among adolescents and evaluate the effectiveness of a school-based coping skills program. The study also examined the association between psychological distress and selected sociodemographic variables. Method. A pre-experimental, one-group pre-test/post-test study was conducted among 205 school-going adolescents. Participants were selected using a purposive sampling method. Psychological distress was measured using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21). The Mann–Whitney U test was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the coping skills intervention. Fisher's exact test was used to determine associations between psychological distress and selected sociodemographic variables. Results. The study sample consisted of 29.3% females and 70.7% males. A considerable proportion of students reported moderate levels of depression (34.6%) and anxiety (26.3%), while the majority of adolescents (75.1%) did not experience stress. Following the coping skills intervention, the proportion of adolescents with normal depression scores increased to 72%, while moderate cases decreased to 9% and severe cases were eliminated. Similarly, normal anxiety scores increased to 72%, while moderate and severe anxiety decreased to 12% and 2%, respectively. The proportion of adolescents with normal stress scores increased to 96.6%, while extremely severe stress decreased from 9.3% to 0.5%. Psychological distress was significantly associated with age, gender, parental education and occupation, family income, number of siblings, birth order, friendships, academic performance, perceived pressure, and bullying (p < 0.05). Conclusion. The findings suggest that school-based coping skills programs can significantly improve adolescents' mental health. These results highlight the importance of addressing both personal and environmental factors to support adolescent well-being   Keywords: adolescents, school based coping skill, psychological distress, depression, stress, anxiety