The Coping Strategies After a Resilience Intervention Programme: A Randomised Controlled Trial Among Adolescent Students with Hearing Loss

Abstract

ABSTRACT Children and adolescents with hearing-loss experience stress in their lives, and try to manage it by using coping strategies. This study examined the effectiveness of a resilience intervention programme on use of coping strategies in adolescent students with hearing-loss. A pre-test, post-test, follow-up and control group design was enforced. The participants consisted of 122 students with hearing loss in mainstreaming settings. They were randomly assigned to intervention (61 students) and control groups (61 students). The intervention group arranged in sub-groups of three to five and they received training for 6 weeks (two times per week for seventy-five min). The ‘Ways of Coping Questionnaire’ was used to measure different coping strategies used by individuals in stressful situations. The results showed significant difference between the control and interventional groups in terms of using types of coping strategies, at the post-test and follow-up measurements. The significant difference was found for seeking social support, planful problem solving in post and follow-up measurements. Using all types of coping strategies was enhanced in post measurement, except for accepting responsibility, escape/avoidance and distancing strategies. The resilience training programme was very effective on using the coping strategies and could be utilized to help students with hearing-loss cope with stressful situations.