The effectiveness of psychosocial skills training package on happiness and general self-efficacy of tehran bus company’s drivers

Driving is an important and inseparable part of work, economic activities, and social life. Increasing the level of happiness and improving driverschr('39') self-efficacy are the factors that can be achieved by educating psychosocial skills training. In different countries, special attention is paid to the mental health of drivers and several programs are designed and implemented in this field. However, this issue has not been addressed in Iran. Due to the high number of accidents caused by the psychological problems of drivers in Iran, attention to the health and occupational health of drivers needs to be the focus of mental health service providers.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the efficacy of psychosocial skills training package on driverschr('39') happiness and general self-efficacy.

This study utilized a quasi-experimental research method with a one-group pretest-posttest design. The statistical population included all drivers of Tehran Bus Company, from which 101 drivers were randomly selected and received the desired training in psychosocial skills training in 1395 at Khajeh Nasir Toosi University. In these workshops which took place in nine sessions, eighty minutes each, the drivers were trained in the areas of anger management, revenge driving, effective communication, and stress management. This project started in 1390 and in several phases administered on drivers applying for bus driving company in Tehran. To evaluate the effectiveness of the training program, the Munsh Scale of Happiness (Kozma, Stone & Stones, 2000) and General Self-efficacy Scale (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995) were used. Data were analyzed using repeated measure analysis.

Findings from the repeated measure analysis for evaluating happiness show that there is a significant difference (P< 0/05) in the mean scores of positive experience between the pre-test (M= 10/49) and the post-test (M= 11/29) scores (P= 0/02). Even though the results of the paired sample t-test on the general self-efficacy questionnaire show a difference between the mean scores of pre-test (M= 31/81) and post-test (M= 32/64), this difference is not statistically significant (P> 0/05).

Participating in a psychosocial skills workshop has had a positive effect on participantschr('39') performance like increasing positive experience. However, the data analysis failed to show statistically significant differences in terms of increasing positive emotion and general self-efficacy and also decreasing negative feelings and experience. The findings of the present study showed that the psychosocial skills training package can be an effective intervention in improving the mental health of drivers.