Objective: To investigate the effect of family therapy education in promoting mental health and reducing depression in adolescents with high-risk behaviors.
Methods: The present study was semi-experimental with a pre-test-post-test design with a control group. It included all teenage girls in the second year of high school with high-risk behaviors in Ardabil province. In this study, 30 eligible patients were selected and invited purposefully. The researchers randomly divided the participants into two family therapy training groups (15 people) and a control group (15 people). The experimental group was taught the methods and techniques of family therapy education strategies for eight 90-minute sessions. In contrast, during this period, the control group received no psychological training on the mental health and resilience scale. The data were compared using multivariate and univariate analysis of variance. All statistical analyses were performed in SPSS software version 26.
Results: Compared to the control group, the experimental group was able to reduce the depression score and increase the mental health score at the level of P<0.001 with the intervention of family therapy training. The most significant effect size (η=0.543) is related to mental health, which shows that 54% of the variance of the mental health variable between the experimental and control groups is due to the independent variable (family therapy training).
Conclusion: The results showed that family therapy training increases mental health and reduces depression in adolescents with high-risk behaviors. Therefore, family therapy training is recommended for adolescents with high-risk behaviors to increase mental health, reduce depression and improve their quality of life.
