The Effectiveness of Emotional Schema Therapy on Social Acceptance and Bullying Behavior in Teenagers with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of emotional schema therapy on social acceptability and bullying behavior in adolescents with post-traumatic stress disorder among selected teenagers.
The present study was a semi-experimental design with pretest-posttest and control group. The population of the study was all teenage boy injured in Khoy city (Iran) in 2016 which were sponsored by the Welfare Organization of Iran. 50 males were selected through available sampling method and randomly assigned to experimental or control groups (N = 25). The experimental group underwent 10 sessions of emotional schema therapy, while the control group did not receive treatment. Both groups completed social acceptance and bullying behavior questionnaires before and after treatment sessions. To investigate the data, descriptive analysis and covariance analysis were used with respect to its assumptions.
Analysis of covariance of data showed that there was a significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental group in post-test and social acceptance and bullying behavior with control group (P = 0.01). The intervention also increased social acceptance scores and decreased bullying behavior in the experimental group (P = 0.01).
Emotional Schema Therapy seems to be an appropriate intervention for addressing social acceptability and bullying behavior in adolescents with posttraumatic stress disorder.