Effect of Life Skills Training on Psychological Distress among Male and Female Adolescent Students

The period of adolescence is a stressful time and adolescents are vulnerable in the face of their problems and requirements of life. Some programs have been designed for preventing and avoiding these problems, one of the most effective kinds of them is the life skills training program that has been designed by World Health Organization (WHO). This study was done to investigate the effect of life skills training on psychological distress among male and female adolescent students. The sample comprised of 200 (100 male&100 female) adolescent students, were selected randomly and divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group received life skills training in 8 sessions, but the control group didn't attend the sessions. Kessler psychological distress scale by Kessler et al. (2002) was administered in pre and post intervention to measuring psychological distress. Results revealed that life skills training has significantly decreased psychological distress in the selected sample of experimental group and gender did not have differential influence on reducing psychological distress due to life skills training.