Evaluation of the impact of the new version of a handbook to promote psychological wellbeing and emotional intelligence in the schools (students aged 12-15)

Aim. A recent study has demonstrated the effectiveness of a structured intervention based on a manual of mental health promotion for students of secondary schools developed by the Istituto Superiore di Sanita based on the "cooperative learning", the "life skills" and "self-efficacy"; unfortunately, the results were less significant than expected. The Authors made changes to the Handbook for Students simplifying the language to allow its use even in middle schools. The present study aims at evaluating the effectiveness of this new version of the manual that includes a notebook. Methods. A pre-post study design was used with also experimental vs. control group comparison. Five classes were included in the experimental group and five in the control group belonging to 5 different institutes. The efficacy has been established through several self-filled questionnaires to assess improvement of skills (effective communication, goal-setting, problem solving), psychological well-being, perceived self-efficacy in the regulation of negative and positive emotions, irrational believes, and unhealthy lifestyles such as drinking and smoking. Results. Significant improvements were observed in almost all dimensions evaluated with the exception of self-efficacy and irrational believes. Of particular importance were the improvements about skills (effective communication, goalsetting and problem solving), psychological well-being and in some behaviors "at risk" as the frequent involvement in fights and smoking habit. Overall, the improvement was greater than that observed in the first study by the same authors using the manual in the original version. Conclusions. The observed data confirm the effectiveness of this approach with better results if compared to previous studies because of the use of the new edition of the manual. One of the ingredient of success, in the opinion of the authors, was the use of this manual that includes a notebook that stimulates extracurricular exercises.