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Existential Therapy for Children: Impact of a Philosophy for Children Intervention on Positive and Negative Indicators of Mental Health in Elementary School Children

Background: Philosophy for children (P4C) was initially developed in the 1970s and served as an educational program to promote critical thinking, caring, creative reasoning and inquiry in the educational environment. Quasi-experimental research on P4C, a school-based approach that aims to develop ch...

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Autores principales: Malboeuf-Hurtubise, Catherine, Di Tomaso, Carina, Lefrançois, David, Mageau, Geneviève A., Taylor, Geneviève, Éthier, Marc-André, Gagnon, Mathieu, Léger-Goodes, Terra
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8657051/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34886057
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182312332
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author Malboeuf-Hurtubise, Catherine
Di Tomaso, Carina
Lefrançois, David
Mageau, Geneviève A.
Taylor, Geneviève
Éthier, Marc-André
Gagnon, Mathieu
Léger-Goodes, Terra
author_facet Malboeuf-Hurtubise, Catherine
Di Tomaso, Carina
Lefrançois, David
Mageau, Geneviève A.
Taylor, Geneviève
Éthier, Marc-André
Gagnon, Mathieu
Léger-Goodes, Terra
author_sort Malboeuf-Hurtubise, Catherine
collection PubMed
description Background: Philosophy for children (P4C) was initially developed in the 1970s and served as an educational program to promote critical thinking, caring, creative reasoning and inquiry in the educational environment. Quasi-experimental research on P4C, a school-based approach that aims to develop children’s capacity to think by and for themselves, has suggested it could be an interesting intervention to foster greater basic psychological need satisfaction in children in school settings. Objective: The goal of the present study was to evaluate the impact of P4C on basic psychological need satisfaction and mental health in elementary school students. Method: Students from grades one to three (N = 57) took part in this study and completed pre- and post-intervention questionnaires. A randomized cluster trial with a wait-list control group was implemented to compare the effects of P4C on students’ mental health. Results: Analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) revealed a significant effect of group condition on levels of autonomy and anxiety, after controlling for baseline levels. Participants in the experimental group showed higher scores in autonomy, when compared to participants in the control group, and participants in the experimental group showed lower anxiety scores, when compared to participants in the control group. Conclusion: Overall, results from this study show that P4C may be a promising intervention to foster greater autonomy in elementary school children, while also improving mental health.
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spelling pubmed-86570512021-12-10 Existential Therapy for Children: Impact of a Philosophy for Children Intervention on Positive and Negative Indicators of Mental Health in Elementary School Children Malboeuf-Hurtubise, Catherine Di Tomaso, Carina Lefrançois, David Mageau, Geneviève A. Taylor, Geneviève Éthier, Marc-André Gagnon, Mathieu Léger-Goodes, Terra Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Background: Philosophy for children (P4C) was initially developed in the 1970s and served as an educational program to promote critical thinking, caring, creative reasoning and inquiry in the educational environment. Quasi-experimental research on P4C, a school-based approach that aims to develop children’s capacity to think by and for themselves, has suggested it could be an interesting intervention to foster greater basic psychological need satisfaction in children in school settings. Objective: The goal of the present study was to evaluate the impact of P4C on basic psychological need satisfaction and mental health in elementary school students. Method: Students from grades one to three (N = 57) took part in this study and completed pre- and post-intervention questionnaires. A randomized cluster trial with a wait-list control group was implemented to compare the effects of P4C on students’ mental health. Results: Analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) revealed a significant effect of group condition on levels of autonomy and anxiety, after controlling for baseline levels. Participants in the experimental group showed higher scores in autonomy, when compared to participants in the control group, and participants in the experimental group showed lower anxiety scores, when compared to participants in the control group. Conclusion: Overall, results from this study show that P4C may be a promising intervention to foster greater autonomy in elementary school children, while also improving mental health. MDPI 2021-11-24 /pmc/articles/PMC8657051/ /pubmed/34886057 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182312332 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Malboeuf-Hurtubise, Catherine
Di Tomaso, Carina
Lefrançois, David
Mageau, Geneviève A.
Taylor, Geneviève
Éthier, Marc-André
Gagnon, Mathieu
Léger-Goodes, Terra
Existential Therapy for Children: Impact of a Philosophy for Children Intervention on Positive and Negative Indicators of Mental Health in Elementary School Children
title Existential Therapy for Children: Impact of a Philosophy for Children Intervention on Positive and Negative Indicators of Mental Health in Elementary School Children
title_full Existential Therapy for Children: Impact of a Philosophy for Children Intervention on Positive and Negative Indicators of Mental Health in Elementary School Children
title_fullStr Existential Therapy for Children: Impact of a Philosophy for Children Intervention on Positive and Negative Indicators of Mental Health in Elementary School Children
title_full_unstemmed Existential Therapy for Children: Impact of a Philosophy for Children Intervention on Positive and Negative Indicators of Mental Health in Elementary School Children
title_short Existential Therapy for Children: Impact of a Philosophy for Children Intervention on Positive and Negative Indicators of Mental Health in Elementary School Children
title_sort existential therapy for children: impact of a philosophy for children intervention on positive and negative indicators of mental health in elementary school children
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8657051/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34886057
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182312332
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