Effect of positive psychology intervention on mental health and wellbeing in primary school students: An emotion-based approach

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of an emotion-focused positive intervention program on the mental health and well-being of primary school students. The research was carried out using a pretest-posttest experimental design with a control group. The data collection tools used in the study included the Personal Information Form, Youth Externalized Behaviors Scale, Youth Internalized Behaviors Scale, Psychological Well-Being and Stress Scale, and the Positive and Negative Experience Scale. The study group consisted of 67 students in the 4th grade of a primary school affiliated with the Ministry of National Education, which the researcher had previous knowledge of, during the 2022-2023 academic year. The students were randomly divided into an experimental group (n=42) and a control group (n=39). Pre-tests were administered to both the experimental and control groups. An eight-session emotion-focused positive psychology intervention program was conducted with the students in the experimental group, while no intervention was applied to the control group. After the program implementation, a post-test was administered to both groups. A follow-up test was conducted four weeks later to determine whether the effect of the intervention program on the students' well-being and mental health was long-lasting. To examine the effectiveness of the emotion-focused positive psychology intervention program on each dependent variable, a two-way repeated measures analysis of variance was performed. T-test analyses for independent samples were used to assess whether the findings obtained from these analyses were affected by the initial differences between the participants. Additionally, covariance analyses were conducted to check for any potential effects and the findings were reinterpreted. The research revealed a significant difference in favor of the experimental group when examining the post-test scores of positive emotion, negative emotion, psychological stress, psychological well-being, internalized problems, and externalized problems between the experimental and control groups. The follow-up study demonstrated that the effect of the emotion-focused positive intervention continued in the follow-up measurements taken four weeks later. It was observed that the treatment applied to the experimental group had a positive effect on the students' mental health and well-being. The results of the research were discussed in light of the existing literature.