Research On The Effects Of Interpersonal Group Counseling For The Depressive University Students

This study examined the relation between self-concept, social support and depression. Ss were 730 university students in Huazhong Agriculture University. The assessments included the Depressive Experiences Questionaire (DEQ), the Tennessee Self Concept Scale (TSCS), the Perceived Social Support Scale (PSSS) and the Social Support Evaluation Scale (SSES). By path analysis, we found that the total score of self-concept was negatively correlated with depression and the score of social support and periceived social support were not correlated with depression. But they were all posivily related to self-concept. So the social support and periceived social support affected depression indirectly. We made detail ananlysis on the relation between self-concept, social support, periceived social support and depression by linear regression. Factors predicting depression included personal self-concept, self-critism, physical self-concept, social self-concept, periceived social support. The depression of college students were most influenced by personal self-concept and secongly by physical self-concept. We explored the efficacy of interpersonal group counseling on descending degree of depression. 50 students with high depression and low self-concept were randomly devided into 5 groups, two study groups, two compare groups and one control group. The study groups received interpersonal model of group counseling, and the compare groups received outdoor-exercise model of group counseling. The control group did not received any intervention. All groups met for two hours per week for 10 weeks. All participants were assessed by DEQ, TSCS , PSSS and SSES in the end of group counseling. The results indicated that the interpersonal group produced signifecant differences on the changs of self-concept and depression comparing with control group and on the changes of personal self-concept comparing with compare group.