Effectiveness of Acceptance and commitment therapy on distress tolerance and social adjustment of adolescents with social anxiety disorder

Authors
Fatemeh Shariati
Majid Pourfaraj
Isalamic Azad University
Abstract
Introduction: Social anxiety disorder is a disorder that can increase psychological distress and reduce the quality of social life. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment-based therapy on distress tolerance and social adjustment of adolescents with social anxiety.

Methods: The design of the research was semi-experimental with a pre-test-post-test design and a control group. The statistical population of this research included 83 male students with social anxiety in the second high school who were studying in the academic year of 1401-1402 in the schools of District One of Babol city. Thirty people were selected from the mentioned population using the available sampling method, who met the entry criteria of the research, and were randomly divided into 2 groups (15 people in the first experimental group and 15 people in the control group). To collect information, Simmons and Gaher's social adjustment and distress tolerance questionnaire was used. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA)and SPSS26 software were used to analyze the data.

Results: The results of the Eta coefficients indicate that 29% of the improvement in distress tolerance scores and 51% of the improvement in social adjustment for the experimental group can be attributed to the effect of acceptance and commitment therapy.

Conclusion: The observed results showed the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on distress tolerance. Therefore, this treatment method can be recommended to improve distress tolerance and social adaptation of adolescents with social anxiety.


Keywords
acceptance and commitment therapy
Distress Tolerance
social adjustment
adolescents
Social anxiety
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