Effectiveness of Motivational Psychotherapy on High-Risk Behaviors (Violence and Sexual Behavior) of Students

Background and Objective: High-risk behaviors are one of the most important threatening problems for the physical, psychological, and social health of individuals and society. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of motivational psychotherapy on high-risk behaviors (i.e., violence and sexual behavior) of students. Materials and Methods: This quasi-experimental study was conducted with a pretest-posttest control group design. The study population included all male high school students in Birjand, Iran, in the academic year of 2019-2020. The samples (n=30) were selected using the purposive sampling method, randomly divided into two groups of experimental and control (n=15 each), and responded to the Iranian Adolescents Risk-taking Scale. The experimental group participated in eight 90-minute motivational psychotherapy sessions, while the control group received no intervention during this period. The collected data were analyzed in SPSS software (version 22) using the multivariate analysis of covariance at the significance level of 0.05. Results: The results showed that the effect of motivational psychotherapy was significant in reducing high-risk behaviors (i.e., violence and sexual behavior) (P<0.01). As a result, there was a significant difference between the pretest and posttest scores of experimental and control groups regarding violence and sexual behavior (P<0.01). Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, the application of motivational psychotherapy affected reducing high-risk behaviors (violence and sexual behavior) of students.