The Effectiveness of Behavioral Activation Group Therapy on Emotional Regulation and Suicidal Ideation Strategies in Female Students With Major Depressive Disorder

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of behavioral activation group therapy on emotional regulation strategies and suicidal ideation in female students with major depressive disorder. The study was a semi experimental design with pretest-posttest design with control group.  The statistical population of the study consisted of all 3grade students of high schools in Shiraz city in the academic year of 2018-19., of which 30 were selected after the diagnosis of major depressive disorder and then the clinical interview and randomly being assigned into two experimental (15 couples) and controls (15 couples) groups. The experimental group received eight sessions of 90 minutes (weekly twice) of the program of behavioral activation group therapy; the control group waited 2 months to receive the intervention. Emotion regulation Gross & John (2003) and beck suicide (1979) questionnaires were used to collect information in two stages of pretest and posttest. Multivariate analysis of covariance analysis was used to analyze the data. The findings of the study showed that there is a significant difference between the two groups in the pre-test and post-test scores with the control of the effect of pretest on the components of emotional a regulation strategies including re-evaluation and suppression (P <0.01). In other words, it can be said that the behavioral activation therapy group has an effect on improving emotional regulation strategies and reducing the  suicidal ideation in students with major depressive disorder.