Effectiveness of unified trans-diagnostic treatment on emotion’s cognitive regulation and cognitive empathy of students with externalized behavior disorder

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 M.A. in Clinical Psychology, Islamic Azad University, Bookan Branch, Bookan, Iran.

2 M.A. in General Psychology, Islamic Azad University, Arak Branch, Arak, Iran

Abstract

Aim:Present study was conducted aiming to investigate the effectiveness of unified trans-diagnostic treatment on emotion’s cognitive regulation and cognitive empathy of the students with externalized behavior disorder. Methods: It was a quasi-experimental study with pretest, posttest and control group design. The statistical population included all male first grade high school students with externalized behavioral disorder in the town of Bookan in academic year 2017-2018. 30 male students with externalized behavioral disorder were purposefully selected and randomly placed into experiment and control groups. The experiment group received ten seventy-five-minute sessions of interventions during two-and-a-half months while the control groups didn’t receive any intervention during doing the process. The applied questionnaires included Children and Adolescents Behavioral Inventory Questionnaire (Achenbach and Rescorla, 2001), Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gross and John, 2003) and Cognitive and Affective Empathy Questionnaire (Jolliffe and Farrington, 2006). The data gathered were analyzed via SPSS24 through ANCOVA method. Results: The results showed that unified trans-diagnostic treatment has significantly influenced emotion’s cognitive regulation and cognitive empathy of the students with externalized behavior disorder (p<0.001). The degree of the effect of unified trans-diagnostic treatment on emotion cognitive regulation and cognitive empathy of the students with externalized behavior disorder was 72% and 67% respectively. Conclusion: According to the findings of the present study, it can be concluded that unified trans-diagnostic treatment can be applied as an efficient treatment to improve emotion’s cognitive regulation and cognitive empathy of the students with externalized behavior disorder.

Keywords


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