The Effectiveness of Group-Based Dialectic Behavioral Therapy on Depression and Perceived Stress of Female Students

Introduction: Depression disorder with a widespread incidence of about 10-25% for women and 10-12% for men over the lifetime has been known as a mental cold since many years ago. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of collective dialectical behavioral therapy on depression and perceived stress in female students. Methods: This research was a semi-experimental design with pre-test and post-test with control group. The statistical population of the study included all female students of the faculty of humanities Islamic Azad University of Najafabad who studied in the academic year of 2017-18. Among them, 30 subjects were selected by means of Beck Depression Inventory and was replaced in two experimental groups (15 subjects) and control (n = 15). The experimental group was grouped in dialectical behavioral therapy for 8 sessions of 90 minutes. The Beck Depression Scale and perceived stress scale were used to collect data, which was performed in both pretest and posttest. Data were analyzed using mankova covariance analysis at a significance level of P <0.05. Results: The results showed that dialectical behavioral therapy was effective in improving depression (P = 0/018) and perceived stress (P = 0/023) in female students with depression. Conclusion: According to the results, dialectical behavioral therapy can improve depression and perceived stress among female students. Therefore, this intervention can be used as an effective treatment for the improvement of this disorder and can be used to help improve the condition of people with depression.