The Effectiveness of Stress Management Training on Risky Behaviors in Female Students

The present study aims to investigate the effectiveness of a stress management training on risky behaviors of female students. In view of the objective and data collection, the present research method is applied in terms of purpose and is a quasi-experimental study with pre-test-post-test and follow-up design in terms of data collection. The statistical population consists of 380 students of secondary school in Shahriar, Andisheh region, in the academic year 2019–2020, out of which 30 were selected and classified into experimental and control groups by homogenizing the academic grade point average. For the pre-test, the students answered the Iranian Adolescent’s Risk-Taking Scale (IARTS) and after 10 sessions of stress management training for the experimental group, they answered the above instruments for the post-test. Data was analyzed using SPSS-24 software, and the repeated measures analysis of variance method was used to analyze the data. The results of the present study showed that the interactive effect of time × group on the components of propensity to smoke and propensity to violence, propensity to sexual relations and behavior and relationship with the opposite sex were significant. Studying the context in which risky behaviors occur seems to help prevent problematic behaviors in students. Based on the results of the present study, it is recommended to raise awareness among families by encouraging parents to attend courses on parental stress management.