The Effectiveness of Schema Therapy on Social Safeness and Pleasure, and Positive Youth Development among Adolescents with Physical-Motor Disabilities: A Pilot Study

 Physical-motor disability can lead to a decrease in social safeness and pleasure and positive development in adolescents with physical-motor disabilities. This study was conducted with the aim of determining the effectiveness of schema therapy on social safeness and pleasure and positive development of adolescence in adolescents with physical-motor disabilities.

 The research was conducted using a semi-experimental method with a pre-test-post-test design with the participation of 21 female adolescent with physical-motor disabilities supported by the welfare organization of Qom city in 2022. Sampling was a convenience sampling method. They were randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups. The experimental group received intervention during 10 sessions of 120 minutes, but the control group did not receive any intervention. The data were collected with scales of Social Safeness and Pleasure and positive development of adolescence and were analyzed using covariance analysis test and SPSS Statistics for Windows, version 24.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, Ill., USA).

 The mean (SD) of of social safeness and pleasure in the experimental group increased from 30.2 (7.6) before the intervention to 38.64 (6.98) after the intervention (P=0.001). The mean (SD) of positive youth development in the experimental group decreased from 29.5 (5.3) before the intervention to 23.5 (4.5) after the intervention (P=0.005). In the control group, there was no significant difference between pretest and posttest scores.

 The study showed that schema therapy improves social safeness and pleasure and positive development of adolescents with physical-motor disabilities.