Hossein Ebrahimi1, seyed Gholamreza Nourazar2, Hossein Namdar3, Parinaz Omrani4*
Introduction: According to the results obtained in many of the studies reporting substantial effects by emotional intelligence on the individuals’ success, life and education and due to the problems and discordance in adolescents with ADHD, the necessity to pay a greater deal of attention to this issue as well as the high prevalence of the disease among the adolescents and the scarcity of the studies performed in this field in Iran, the current research paper aims at investigating the effect of group emotional intelligence training on the emotional intelligence strengthening in the adolescents with ADHD who have referred to Specialized and Super-Specialized Psychiatric Centers in the city of Tabriz.
Materials and Methods: The present study is a clinical trial that was conducted on 76 adolescents with ADHD, ranging in age from 11 to 16 years, who were chosen based on a convenience method featuring pretest-posttest-follow-up test and a control group. The study population encompassed on all the Child and Adolescent Super Specialized Clinics in Tabriz including Tabriz’s Razi Child and Adolescents’ Training and Therapy Center and Tabriz’s Bozorgmehr Psychiatric Clinic. Sampling was carried out through an observation of the inclusion and exclusion scales and the study sample volume was selected randomly based on random four-block sampling method. After being subjected to the pretest, the study sample volume was assigned to two control and test groups. The data acquired through inferential statistics including Chi-square test, independent t-test, Pierson correlation coefficient and k-s test were analyzed in SPSS software, ver.22.
Findings: the study results indicated that there is a significant difference between the mean hyperactivity scores pre- and post-intervention (P<0.0001). In terms of emotional intelligence evaluations on both genders in a 0.39 level, the results are expressive of the idea that there is no significant difference and that both of the genders enjoyed an equal amount of emotional intelligence. Hyperactivity rates were also found statistically significant in a 0.03 level. The intergroup significance level before and after intervention was 0.01. Also, the results are indicative of the positive effects of emotional intelligence on the studied groups.
Discussion and Conclusion: since adolescence is considered as a highly stressful life period during which the intellectual and emotional axes of the child undergo a lot of variations and the adolescents are at the verge of entering another stage of life, there is a need for a far greater attention to be paid thereto as well as its motivational, emotional and cognitive aspects. It is through increasing the emotional intelligence that we can identify the adolescents’ self-awareness and their needs and it is through training the adolescents that they can be largely assisted to define goals and find their own ways to achieve them. When such self-awareness comes about, they can develop sympathy and identify the emotions and feelings of the therapists and take effective measures in line with solving their own as well as the therapists’ problems.
