The Effectiveness of Short-Term Cognitive Behavioral Therapy on Aggression in Male Adolescent with PUBG Game Addiction

Aggression in male adolescent is a common phenomenon and addiction to electronic games can increase their aggression. Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of determine the effectiveness of short-term cognitive behavioral therapy on aggression in male adolescent with PUBG game addiction.

This research in terms of purpose was applied and in terms of implementation method was semi-experimental with a pretest-posttest design with a control group. The research population was male adolescent referred to the computer game clubs of Sari city in 2021 year, who among them number of 30 people after checking the inclusion criteria were selected as a sample with the purposive sampling method and by simple random method with the help of lottery were assigned into two equal groups (each group 15 people). The experimental group received eight sessions of 90 minute for two months (one session per week) the short-term cognitive behavioral therapy based on Stark and Kendall's model (1996), and during this period the control group did not receive any training. The research tools were included the D'Souza et al's PUBG addiction test (2019) and the Buss and Perry's aggression questionnaire (1992), which their psychometric indicators were appropriate and desirable. Data were analyzed by univariate analysis of covariance method in SPSS version 26 software.

The findings of the present research showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of aggression in male adolescent with PUBG game addiction. In the other words, short-term cognitive behavioral therapy reduced aggression in male adolescent with PUBG game addiction (P<0.001).

According to the results of the present research, i.e., the effectiveness of short-term cognitive behavioral therapy on reducing aggression in male adolescent with PUBG game addiction, to reduce emotional problems of adolescents such as aggression can be used short-term cognitive behavioral therapy along with other treatment methods.