Design and evaluation of a positive intervention to cultivate mental health: preliminary findings

Abstract

The past two decades have witnessed a proliferation of positive psychological interventions for clinical and non-clinical populations, and recent research, including meta-analyses, is providing evidence of its effectiveness. Most interventions have focused on increasing life satisfaction, positive affect, and psychological well-being. Manualized, multi-component interventions based on a comprehensive theory are scarce. Keyes’ concept of mental health and flourishing (subjective, psychological, and social well-being) is an overarching theoretical framework to guide the design of a multi-component psychological intervention to cultivate well-being and personal development. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to design a theory-driven positive intervention and to pilot test the intervention. The manual presents an 8-week group program that includes homework activities. A sample of 56 young adults completed the intervention. Participants were assessed at base line, after termination, and at a 6-month follow-up session. Standardized instruments were used to assess the dimensions of mental health proposed by Keyes. Pre- and post-test measures of subjective, psychological, and social well-being showed significant differences, as did the total mental health scores. At 6-month follow-up, differences remained in subjective and psychological well-being and in positive mental health, with smaller effect sizes. Limitations of these preliminary findings as well as future lines of research and improvements in this manualized intervention are proposed in the light of current research on positive interventions.

Effects of a Multi-Component Psychological Intervention to Cultivate Mental Health in Older Adults

“…In this context, positive psychological interventions seem to be a useful tool, 4 though much work is still ahead to empirically validate the interventions and elucidate the processes and mechanism of change involved. The proposal by Gorbeña et al 22 merits further work and adaptations to foster the well-being of older adults.…”

“…The Personal Development and Well-Being Program 22 is an intervention developed after Keyes’ concept of positive mental health and thus it attempts to cultivate subjective, psychological and social well-being. A detailed manual describes the program and the materials used.…”

“…[18][19][20][21] In an attempt to remedy this lack of theoretical foundation, Gorbeña et al developed a multi-component intervention based on this construct and results with young adults indicated that the intervention was effective. 22 The intervention, described in the next section, is, to the best of our knowledge, unique in that it addresses subjective, psychological and social well-being and avoids a focus on changing maladaptive behavioral patterns as other multi-component interventions do. For instance, Friedman et al focused only in psychological well-being, and used CBT to work on cognitive restructuring.…”

<p>Application of a program to improve growth mindset, eudaimonic well-being and multidimensional well-being within the framework of teacher professional development _{[Aplicación de un programa para la mejora de la mentalidad de crecimiento, bienestar eudaimónico y bienestar multidimensional en el marco del desarrollo profesional docente]}</p>

“…Similarmente, el PERMA fue fortalecido, constructo multidimensional del bienestar con elementos hedónicos como las emociones positivas y elementos más de significado como: compromiso, relaciones, sentido de vida y logros, además de la mejora de la autopercepción de su salud, (Butler & Kern, 2016;Seligman, 2011). Por lo tanto, se puede enunciar que la intervención fue efectiva para mejorar el bienestar ya sea en dimensiones muy asociadas a la satisfacción como frecuencia de emociones a elementos asociados al florecimiento, hallazgo congruente con la literatura reportada en otras intervenciones multicomponentes basadas en psicología positiva tanto en docentes como en población en general, (Datu et al, 2023;García-Álvarez et al, 2020;Gorbeña et al, 2021;Kubzansky, 2023;Pozo-Rico et al, 2023), aspecto interesante para seguir explorando debido a la relevancia que se ha encontrado del bienestar docente para explicar permanencia, calidad o abandono de la profesión (Granziera et al, 2021;Mérida-López et al, 2022;Wang et al, 2023).…”

“…De igual forma, se han desarrollado intervenciones psicológicas multicomponentes con elementos de la psicología positiva que han reportado efectividad en mejorar la mentalidad de crecimiento en docentes (Seaton, 2018;Shoshani, 2021), también para promover el desarrollo profesional docente a través del fortalecimiento de estrategias y dinámicas para la gestión educativa (García-Álvarez et al, 2023;Pozo-Rico et al, 2020) o la mejora de determinados elementos en estudiantes relacionados con el bienestar y el crecimiento personal en universitarios (Arteaga-Checa et al, 2022). En población adulta general se han documentado la efectividad de intervenciones psicológicas multicomponentes basadas en temáticas de la psicología positiva con efectos en bienestar hedónico, eudaiomónico y social (Gorbeña et al, 2021;Kubzansky, 2023), así como otras mejoras en mentalidad de crecimiento con intervenciones multicomponentes de corte cognitivo conductual (Parada y Verlhiac, 2022;Yeager et al, 2022). Estudios anteriores demostraron que la mentalidad de crecimiento tiene implicaciones en correlatos de desarrollo de carrera profesional (Han & Stieha, 2020), también que podría conducir al bienestar, compromiso y habilidades docentes (Nalipay et al, 2022;Zeng et al, 2019).…”