The Effectiveness of Positivist Psychology Training on Cognitive Flexibility and Psychological Hardiness of Nurses

Introduction: Positive psychology emphasizes recognizing emotion, controlling emotions, creating optimism, combating negative thoughts, and changing mental images. This study aimed toevaluate the effectiveness of positive psychology training on cognitive flexibility and psychological hardiness of nurses. Methods: The method of this research was quasi-experimental and pre-test-post-test with a control group. The statistical population of the present study consisted of all nurses of Imam Reza Hospital in Sirjan. The sample consisted of 40 people who were selected by convenience sampling method and were randomly divided into experimental and control groups and were assigned to the Dennis and Vanderwall (2010) Cognitive Flexibility Questionnaire and Kobasa (1979) Hardiness Psychological Questionnaire) responded before and after the intervention. The experimental group underwent 8 sessions of 90-minute (once a week) training in Positive Psychology by Seligman et al. (2005) and the control group did not receive any intervention. Subjects' scores were analyzed using an analysis of covariance. Results: Mean and standard deviation of cognitive flexibility in the pretest in the experimental and control groups were 82.97±5.32 and 82.46±5.16 and in the posttest were 94.07±5.14 and 83.19±5.89 (p <0.05). Also, the mean and standard deviation in the psychological hardiness variable in the pre-test in the experimental and control groups were 68.73±5.56 and 68.51±5.17 and in the post-test were 79.13 ± 5.93 and 68.27±5.16. Therefore, the score obtained in the experimental group was significantly different compared to the control group (p <0.05). Conclusion: Positive psychology training is effective in increasing cognitive flexibility and psychological toughness. Therefore, this type of training can be used to reduce nurses' problems.