Pilot program on CBT to promote resilient potential in university students

Abstract

In the university academic context, various programs have been developed to promote resilience. However, in Mexico, the link between resilience and the interventions in higher education has been poorly researched, although it provides an excellent opportunity to explore possibilities from a preventive intervention framework. Objectives: (a) to promote university students’ resilience potential through a cognitive-behavioral intervention program and (b) to compare the pretest and posttest values of the resilience variables between an experimental group and a control group. Participants and methods: 27 university students were studied, classified with low resilience who were randomly assigned to the experimental group (n = 14) and to the control group (n = 13). The experimental group received a cognitive-behavioral intervention of four weekly sessions of 2 hours; at the end of the intervention, an evaluation was carried out with a resilience questionnaire. The experimental group showed statistically significant resilient higher scores in the global resilience evaluation and the external protective factors. Conclusions: the findings show that this preventive program can be useful in promoting resilience potential in university students.