The impact of cognitive-behavioral based psychoeducation study prevention on problematic internet usage in adolescents

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the cognitive behavioral psychoeducation study in order to prevent problematic internet use in adolescents (adolescent education) and to evaluate whether the families of these students (family education) are trained in internet addiction and safe internet use have made a difference or not on problematic internet use. At the same time, the common effect of the education provided to the family and adolescents (family-adolescent education) on the problematic internet use of the students was evaluated. The participants of the study were selected among the ninth and tenth grade students in a high school in the İskenderun district of Hatay province during the 2017-2018 academic year. Among these students, 28 students who scored higher than the Generalized Problematic Internet Use Scale 2 (Caplan, 2010) and volunteered to participate in the study were included in the study. After the identification of the students, 14 parents who volunteered to participate in the family education group were informed about internet addiction and the use of secure internet. A psychoeducation study was conducted to prevent internet addiction with adolescents (14 students) and an information program on prevention of internet addiction and safe internet use by families (14 parents). There were 6 students in the " adolescent education group" which is the group where only the adolescent was educated and there were 6 students in the "family education group" which is the group where only the family was educated, there were 8 students in the "family-adolescent education group" which is the group where both the adolescent and their family receive education. There were 8 students in the control group, which was the group in which the adolescent and their family did not receive education. The research was used in the quasi-experimental design and one of the experimental design was used as an experimental model with pretest-posttest control group. In addition, quantitative data obtained from the quantitative research method was used to triangulate the data used in the sessions and the qualitative data obtained from the interviews with the families. In this research, Generalized Problem Internet Use Scale 2 (GPIUS 2), Personal Information Form, Student Interview Form, Qualitative Interview Form for Mother / Father, Critical Incidents in Group Work Form, Group-Related Measures Form and Evaluation Form at the End of Group by Members were used as data collection tools. While a psychoeducation study was being done to the adolescent education group students, the control group students weren't interfered. Two weeks after the start of the sessions, family trainings were started and three-week training sessions were given two weeks apart. After the education given to the families and students, GPIUS 2 was applied to the students again and a follow-up study was conducted one month later. In the study, pre-test and post-test data collected by GPIUS 2 from family-adolescent education, adolescent education, family education and control groups were analyzed by using Mann Whitney-U and Kruskal Wallis-H test. Family-adolescent education, adolescent education and family education groups were used to determine the persistence of the data collected by the GPIUS 2 and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test was used. For qualitative data collected by the Qualitative Interview Form for Mother / Father, Critical Incidents in Group Work Form, Group-Related Measures Form and Evaluation Form at the End of Group by Members and content analysis was used. When the findings obtained from the study were examined, it was found that the scores of the family-adolescent education group and the control group students differed in favor of the family-adolescent education group with the total score of GPIUS 2 and the scores of online social interaction preference and emotion regulation subscales, and this situation continued in the follow-up test. It was observed that the scores of the GPIUS 2 total score and negative results subscale of the adolescent education group and control group students differed in favor of the adolescent education group and this situation continued in the follow-up test. It was determined that the scores of the family education group and the control group students in the negative results subscale differed in favor of the family education group and this situation continued in the follow-up test. When the opinions of the participants about the experiences of the participants who participated in the psychoeducation study were examined, it was found that each session reached its goal and it was found useful by students to reduce the internet usage and use the internet more consciously. As a result of the focus group interviews with families who volunteered to receive family education, it was observed that the education given to the families of adolescents using the internet was effective, the families were satisfied with the education they received and communicated more effectively with their children. When the communication between the family and the child became stronger after the training, it was observed that the internet usage of the children decreased. According to these results obtained from the research, it can be said that giving education to the family and the student together in preventing internet addiction is more effective in reducing problematic internet use.