Students' Optimistic Attitudes and Resiliency program: Empirical validation of a prevention program developing hope and optimism.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this study was to experimentally evaluate the Students' Optimistic Attributions and Resiliency (SOAR) program opposite the treatment control SCARE (Student Created Anger Reduction Education) program in order to assess SOAR's effects across different target behavioral and cognitive outcome measures. The SOAR program is based an the theories of learned optimism and hope theory. Specifically, the answer was sought to the question: Is SOAR effective in preventing and reducing depression, as measured by the Children's Depression Inventory, while increasing individual levels of hope (Hope Scale) and learned optimism (Children's Attributional Style Questionnaire)? A culturally diverse sample of 201 5th and 6th grade students from an urban public grade school was included in the study. A final sample of 149 students was included in analyses for Time 2 at the end of the intervention, and 80 students were included in the Time 3 analyses five months after the intervention. Results showed students exposed to the SOAR program reflected significantly lower levels of depression at Time 2 but no differences in levels of optimism and hope. At Time 3, only the depressed students from both treatment groups indicated a sustained reduction in depression with the SOAR treatment group showing a more pronounced effect over the control group. Overall, the results supported the efficacy of the SOAR program.