Acceptability, Feasibility and First Results on the Effects of the New Version of the Secondary Preventive Stress Management Training for Children

Stressful experiences and physical strain increase significantly across childhood and adolescence. Especially the development and evaluation of secondary preventive stress management programs among children and adolescents have been widely neglected in previous German studies. In the present pilot study, a newly developed secondary preventive Anti-Stress-Training for children (Hempel & Petermann, 2017) was evaluated, particularly using formative evaluation methods. First effects of the training were examined applying a single-group-pretest-posttest design to N = 8 sixth graders. The acceptability and feasibility were confirmed. First beneficial results with high effect sizes were found in perceived stress and coping. In contrast, physical strain improved clinically only moderately, and quality of health did not change significantly. Thus, this secondary preventive stress management training shows a good acceptability and feasibility. Overall, results support its beneficial effects, in particular on maladaptive coping, and lend support to the assumption that mental health of children may be improved by this training.