ARTICLE INFO

Article Type

Original Research

Authors

Alisofi   A. (1)
Farnam   A. (*)
Shirazi   M. (2)






(*) Department of Psychology, Faculty of Education, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran
(1) Department of Psychology, Faculty of Education, Zahedan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Zahedan, Iran
(2) Department of Psychology, Faculty of Education, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran

Correspondence

Address: Faculty of Education, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Daneshgah Boulvared, Zahedan, Iran
Phone: +98 (54) 31136868
Fax: -
farnam@ped.usp.ac.i

Article History

Received:  July  3, 2018
Accepted:  September 11, 2018
ePublished:  September 29, 2018

BRIEF TEXT


Spiritual well-being, along with physical, emotional and social well-being, is considered as one of the four health issues [1], and has a close relationship with other aspects of well-being.

[2-7] It has been shown that there is a significant correlation between spiritual well-being and general well-being. In these studies, spirituality and religiosity has been acknowledged as the supportive factors to deal with a range of health-threatening factors [8]. … [9-24]. Several studies have investigated the effect of self-encouragement on the reduction of stress in mothers with cancer children [35], family conflicts and the reduction of women's anxiety [29], women's mental health [28], assertiveness skills and general self-efficacy [32], the accuracy of techniques for cardio-pulmonary resuscitation [36], social and psychological well-being of the addicted women [37], self-efficacy, adherence, and using pedometers in a 10-week walking program [38], general self-efficacy and resilience of the women [25], and the reduction of apparent and hidden symptoms of anxiety [39]; however, no research has been conducted directly on the effectiveness of self-encouragement on spiritual well-being.

This study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of training self-encouragement based on Sheonaker’s method on spiritual well-being and its aspects.

The present study is a semi-experimental research with pre-test-post-test design using control group.

This research was done on all university students-teachers of the Farhangian University-Resalat Campus for girls in Zahedan in second semester in 2018. The subjects lived in the university dormitories.

30 students-teachers were randomly selected via voluntary and purposeful random sampling and were randomly divided into the experimental and control groups (n=15). According to Sheonaker (who developed the training program), the number of subjects in the experimental groups should be at least 10 people and maximum 20 people [34]. The inclusion criteria were a score below the cut-off point in the spiritual well-being questionnaire (the score 99 and below indicates a moderate and below moderate levels of spiritual well-being), willingness and the consent to participate in the research, studying the continuous BSc course at the Farhangian university, and students whose fathers were employed in the mission and operational positions in the police force (according to the documents in the registration file at the time of entering the university). Exclusion criteria included students whose fathers were not employed in the police force, being absent more than three sessions in the training sessions, a score higher than the cut-off point, and studying in the discontinuous BSc course at the Farhangian University.

Spiritual Well-Being Survey (SWBS) (Paloutzian and Ellison 1982) was used to collect the data. SWBS is a 20-item questionnaire; of which 10 items measure spiritual well-being and 10 items measure existential well-being. The spiritual health score is the total score of these two sub-scales, which is ranged from 20 to 120. Questions are responded on a 6-point Likert scale from "totally disagree" to "totally agree." Questions 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17 and 19 are scored 1 when “totally disagree” is selected and the questions 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 12, 13, 16 and 18 are scored 6 by selecting “totally disagree”. The higher score indicates higher spiritual well-being. The score "20-40" indicates the low level of spiritual well-being, "41-99" a moderate spiritual well-being and "100-120" indicates a high level of spiritual well-being. SWBS has been used in various national and international studies and its validity and reliability have been confirmed [42-40]. Its validity has been approved by Paloutzian and Ellison; the Cronbach's Alpha coefficient of spiritual well-being, existential well-being, and the total scale has been reported 0.91, 0.91, and 93.9, respectively [42]. Sheonaker’s self-encouragement training was performed for the experimental group for 5 weeks; as two group sessions weekly (ten 90-min sessions). The sessions were held at one of the classes in the Farhangian University-Resalat Campus for girls in Zahedan in March 2017. They were held outside the educational hours in the evenings by the researcher as a trainer. The control group did not receive any training through this period. Sheonaker’s self-encouragement training program: this program has been developed based on the items and objectives of the Sheonaker encouragement training sessions [34], with some corrections and additions by the researcher. The total training program consisted of 10 sessions, and each session was organized according to a specific 6-point structure. The first step was a relaxation exercise to make participants able to forget their daily concerns. Encouraging ideas and thoughts were offered through the relaxation exercise. Feedback was given at the beginning of new sessions, and the participants were given one minute to talk with the group about their experiences and the assignments. Then the new information was presented by the trainer, based on the session particular topic. Subsequently, exercises related to this information were given to the group members to do through the session, and the next session task was set. The session was ended with a relaxation exercise called "the next step". While practicing, participants were asked to think how they can use the presented new skills and information in their daily routines, and they were asked to imagine such situations. At the first training session, ethical standards, such as secrecy, no judgment, no insult and teasing, and voluntary participation in the class with no force were introduced as expectations in the classroom. The trainer and participants both were committed to observe expectations during and after the program. At the end of the training sessions, both groups were subjected to post-test and in order to evaluate the stability of the intervention, the subjects in both groups were subjected to follow-up one month later. Data analysis was performed by SPSS 23 using multivariate covariance analysis (MANCOVA) and one-variable analysis (to find out which variable is different between the two groups in the post-test). The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to check the normal distribution of the dependent variables.

Spiritual well-being, religious well-being, and existential well-being scores increased in the experimental group in the post-test and follow-up in comparison with the control group (Table 1). The results of MANCOVA analysis indicated that multivariate Wilks Lambda values were significant in the post-test and follow-up. Wilks Lambda was (p=0.001;f(2, 25)=132.27) in the post-test and (p=0.001, f(2, 25)=255.52) in the follow-up. There was a significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups in the existential well-being and religious well-being in the post-test, by excluding the effect of pre-test on the dependent variables and considering the obtained F coefficients for the of existential well-being (p<0.001, F=177.58) and religious well-being (p<0.001, F=99.09) subscales. There was a significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups in the follow-up, due to the F value for the religious well-being (p<0.001, F=268.12) and existential well-being (P<0.001, F=392.53).

The findings of this research are consistent with some of the previous studies [25, 28, 29, 31, 33-37, 39]. Greaves & Farbus [30] concluded that self-encouragement training can increase awareness, social activity, optimism, well-being, and positive changes in subjects’ well-being and behavior. Caspaner et al. [31] showed that encouragement can make people feel desirable, perform more effectively in their lives, and plan to solve more problems more cautiously. Aliakbari dehkordi et al. [37] in their research entitled "The effectiveness of self-encouragement training on social and psychological well-being of addict woman under therapy” found that self-encouragement training improved the social and psychological well-being of addicted women.

According to the findings of this research and the effectiveness of the Sheonaker’s self-encouragement training on spiritual well-being as well as the well-being importance and status in promoting general health of students, it is suggested that self-encouragement training being used as an effective intervention in academic environments.

This study was done on the students-teachers of the Farhangian University as the samples, so that the results should be cautiously generalized. The limited number of national and international published studies was another limitation of this research.

The Shoenaker’s self-encouragement training is effective on the spiritual well-being of the subjects in the experimental group and can enhance the existential well-being and religious well-being of students-teachers.

Thanks to all the students-teachers of the Farhangian University-Resalat Campus for girls in Zahedan, as well as the staff of the university, for their sincere cooperation and good reception.

None declared.

None declared.

This study is based on the Ph.D. thesis in Educational Psychology, Islamic Azad University, Zahedan, with a verification code of 491 and it was supported by researchers.

TABLES and CHARTS

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