Effects of Positive Psychology Activities on Psychological Capital and Depression among Female Adolescents in the Rajvithi Home for Girls

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Thienchai Ngamthipwatthana
Sucheera Phattharayuttawat
Santipap Nanthasarn

Abstract

Background: Many studies have reported the negative outcomes of the placement of orphan adolescents. To promote these adolescent’s mental health, the researchers created and applied activities from positive psychology interventions (PPI) and the psychological capital (PsyCap)theory to increase the psychological capital of female adolescents residing in the Rajvithi Home for Girls, Bangkok, Thailand.


Objectives: To examine the effect of positive psychology activities on the psychological capital and depression among female adolescents.


Materials and Methods: This study was a quasi-experiment research proposing the effect of positive psychology activities on psychological capital and depression. Volunteered adolescents were randomly assigned by using simple random sampling. The experimental group received treatment for eight consecutive weeks (one hour/week). The subjects’ psychological capital and depression were assessed by using the Thai Psychological Capital inventory and Centre for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression scale in a pretest, post-test, and follow-up after a month. The data were analyzed using non-parametric statistics.


Results: From the pretreatment to post-treatment of the positive psychology activities, the experimental group’s scores was significantly superior to the control condition in regard to hope and optimism (p< 0.05). However, the scores of self-efficacy, resilience, and depression in the pretest, post-test, and follow-up periods of the experimental group were not significantly different, but the depression scores tended to decrease overtime.


Conclusion: These findings suggested using positive psychology activities were a useful way to develop hope and optimism in female adolescents. Together, these activities may be useful as supplementary exercises to increase hope, optimism, and reduce depression in adolescent population.

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References

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