Effectiveness of Spirituality Group Therapy on Psychological Well-being and Personal Growth in Female Students

The current study was carried out in order to identify the effects of the group therapy spirituality on psychological well-being and personal growth initiative among university students. The statistical population included all the female students who were studying at Islamic Azad University South Tehran Branch in the second semester of the academic year 2015-2016. The purposive convenience sampling method was used to evaluate 150 subjects (in a two-month period) individually with Personal Growth Initiative and Psychological Well-Being Scales. After screening, 30 subjects were selected and equally divided into experimental and control groups (The Cohen Table was used, and the effect size and the statistical power were considered 0.5 and 0.76, respectively). The experimental group received group therapy spirituality treatment for 10 sessions of intervention; however, the control group did not receive any treatments. The two groups were revaluated with the abovementioned scales both at the beginning and the end of the study. The results of SPANOVA (Split-Plot-Analysis of Variance) indicated that the personal growth initiative scores of the participants in the experimental group were significantly different from those of the participants in the control group in follow-up (P=0.011). Moreover, the psychological well-being scores of the two groups were significantly different from each other in the posttest (P=0.017) and follow-up (P=0.004). Investigating the means of personal growth initiative and psychological well-being in the two groups showed that personal growth initiative was significantly greater among the students of the experimental group (8.75) compared with the other group in follow-up. Furthermore, the students of the experimental group showed higher levels of psychological well-being in the posttest (3.813) and follow-up (4.75). This indicates the effect of group therapy spirituality on the increase in the scores of personal growth initiative and psychological well-being among students.