Effectiveness of Meaning Therapy on the Meaning of Life of Female Adolescents without Parental or Adequate Parental Care in the Alternative Care Center of Tehran

Introduction: Considering the important role which psychological interventions play in adolescents without parental  or adequate  parental care in the alternative care center, and since the acquisition of meaning is one of the most important components of adaptation to future crises in these groups, the present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of meaning therapy  on the meaning of life of Adolescents without parental  or adequate  parental care in the alternative care center. Methods: This was a semi-experimental study. It is conducted in the form of posttest and pretest implemented on two experimental and control groups; the sample has consisted of all female adolescents without parental  or adequate  parental care in the alternative care center in 2017; among them, thirty adolescents were chosen based on available sampling and randomly assigned in two experimental and control groups; fifteen persons in each group. Wang's meaning in life questionary used as research instruments. The experimental group received twelve, ninety minutes sessions of meaning therapy while the experimental group received none. Finally, the data was collected and analyzed by SPSS software. Results: The results of covariance analysis indicated that the treatment method in the experimental group had a significant effect on the existence of meaning and Search for meaning variables, and the posttest scores of the variables in the experimental group increased in comparison with the pretest scores. Conclusions: The results of this study showed that meaning therapy has been effective in increasing the existence of meaning and search for the meaning of female adolescents without parental or adequate parental care in the Alternative Care Center. Based on the results of this study the lack of meaning in life is one of the important reasons of contrariness and psychological problems in adolescents, so using the meaning therapy could lead to the discovery of the meaning in life and an increase in health status.