Effect of a positive mental health program on university students in Lima: A quasi-experimental study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18050/psiquemag.v15i1.3904Keywords:
Positive psychology interventions, program evaluation, quasi-experimental study, university students, public educationAbstract
The objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of the program Cultivating my positive mental health in students at a public university in Lima, through a quasi-experimental design with 157 participants: 83 from the intervention group (IG) and 74 from the contrast group (CG), incorporated through voluntary non-probabilistic sampling. The program consisted of 12 sessions and was validated by expert judgment; the measurement was made with Lluch's Positive Mental Health Scale. The results of the parametric contrast using Student's t-test and the effect size estimated with Cohen's d evidenced the effectiveness of the program in the IG (t = 9.32922; α = ,000; d = 1.024), in contrast to the CG (t = ,605; α = ,547; d = ,071). These results were replicated when analyzing the six dimensions of the construct in the IG and CG. Likewise, pre- and postintervention scores of the IG were evaluated according to subgroups of gender, major, and year of study, with increases observed in the postintervention measures with large effect sizes (d > ,80 and r > ,50), except in Business Science and first-year students, in whom moderate effect sizes were identified. This research corroborates the value of positively focused interventions and allows us to explain how some sociodemographic conditions differ in the acquisition of resources that strengthen and maintain mental health.
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