Effects of the teen resilience training on psychological wellbeing and resilience of teenagers in Kampala

Abstract

Resilience among adolescents has been found to be very low, with suicide reported as the third leading cause of death (WHO, 2016) and depression as the fourth leading cause of illness and disability in adolescents. Lack of proper psychoeducation on how to manage various aspects of their developing life can further lead turn them towards unhelpful coping mechanisms such as excessive use of alcohol and risky behavior. Trainings and interventions in the past have shown some positive signs in improving resilience among various populations. The Teen Resilience Training program (TRT) was created to provide psychoeducation to teenagers on topics (stress management, emotional wellbeing, growth mindset, self-esteem and self-awareness) which was tested to see its effect on resilience and simultaneously, its effects on psychological wellbeing (PWB)were also being tested. A quasi- experimental design was used on two classes of Year 12 students (N=33) with the training delivered online. Pre- and post-evaluation scores were charted for both control and experiment group, which reveal that the training didn’t have any significant effect on the either resilience or psychological wellbeing of the students. The qualitative data analysis, however, reveals that students in fact benefited from the program and the inability of this change to reflect in statistics can be explained by the fact that the training structure was compromised to fit into the school timetable, the study sample being too small and the program being delivered only over three weeks. The results additionally confirmed that resilience and psychological wellbeing are positively correlated given that P=0.000<0.05 at r=0.779.