The impact of social skills training program applied to Portuguese adolescents ...

• Autor(es): Loureiro, Cândida Rosalinda Exposto da Costa ; Ferreira, Maria Manuela Frederico ; Santos, Maria Margarida Reis
• Data: 2013
• Origem: Repositório Científico da Escola Superior de Enfermagem de Coimbra
• Assunto(s): Health promotion; Nursing intervention; Social behaviour; Adolescents
• Tipo de Documento: Documento de conferência
• Idioma: Inglês

Descrição

Introduction: Despite health education being a widely developed activity by nurses, there are still only few studies that had implemented social training skills programs as a school-based intervention conducted by nurses with adolescents. Objective: To assess the impact of a training program for social skills. Methods: We developed previously a quasi-experimental study with 52 Portuguese adolescents whom presented difficulties in social skills. These students belonged to the 12th year of study (25 students took part in the experimental group and 27 in the control group). This is a follow-up study with a qualitative approach (Bardin, 2009) based on a structured interview that was done to 11 of the 25 students of the experimental group, four months after their participation in the program. Results: Respondents retain the themes covered in the sessions. There were positive changes in their social behavior and they considered their participation as a positive experience. The moment that the program took place was significant because of the teenagers transition such as the passage of a new stage of psychosocial development from adolescents to young adult and to a new academic reality with the entry into higher education. These adolescents considered fundamental the program of socials skills and suggested that it should be extended to all other students of the school as well as to all people of the community. Conclusions: The results reveal that there were real changes in their lives because of the program. There was the possibility of generalization to other contexts of daily life affecting not only the participants but others who were not directly involved. We concluded that this intervention had a positive impact on adolescents who participated in the follow-up evaluation.