Effects of acceptance and commitment therapy oriented psycho-educational program on social appearance anxiety and levels of acceptance and action among adolescents

Purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Oriented Psycho-Educational Program" on social appearance anxiety and levels of acceptance and action among in adolescents. The study was conducted with 24 high school students including 12 girls and 12 boys from the grade 9, 10, 11 of Ergün Öner-Mehmet Öner Anatolian High School in Güngören district of Istanbul between the 2015-2016 education terms. Students who have received a psychiatric treatment, recently experienced trauma, classified as underweight, overweight or obesity according to body-mass index were excluded from this study. Also, students with a special situation (physical disability, skin disease, whiteness of hair, wearing glasses, using hearing aid, etc.) which could lead to social appearance anxiety were excluded from this study in order for controlling the confounding factors. Dependent variables of this experimental study are Social Appearance Anxiety Scale (SAAS) scores, and Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (AAQ-II) scores, while; independent variable of this study is "ACT oriented Psycho-Educational Program". As data collection tool, Turkish version of Social Appearance Anxiety Scale (Doğan, 2010) and Turkish version of Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (Yavuz, et. al., 2016) were used in this study. As research model of this study, a 2x3 Split-plot (Complex) experimental design, including pre-test, post-test and follow-up measures for experimental and control groups, was used. ACT Oriented Psycho-Educational 8-week Program developed by the researcher was applied to experimental group which was constituted according to the scores of Social Appearance Anxiety Scale. No action was taken to the students in control group. Pre-tests were applied to experimental and control groups two weeks before the application of "ACT Oriented Psycho-Educational Program". Also, post-tests were given to the subjects of experimental and control group two-weeks after the completion of administration of the Psycho-educational Program and follow-up tests were given to the same group two-months after the manipulation. For the data analysis, repeated measures two-way ANOVA was conducted for investigating whether there is a significant difference between groups and measures. SPSS 20 program was used for the statistical data analysis. In conclusion, it was found that "ACT Oriented Psycho-Educational Program" has a significant effect in reducing social appearance anxiety levels and increasing acceptance and action levels among adolescents and also, the same effect was found for the follow-up measures. The results obtained were discussed thoroughly in the lights of literature and some suggestions were made for the future studies. Keywords: Adolescence, Acceptance, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy,Psycho-educational Program, Social Appearance Anxiety