RESUMO
OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of cognitive-behavioral group therapy on improving adolescents' behavioral problems, especially violent behavior. METHOD: The subjects were 27 middle school students referred by their teachers for behavioral problems. We devided them into 4 teams and treated them for 15 sessions of cognitive-behavioral group therapy. The control group were 20 middle school students who had no cognitive-behavioral therapy. We assessed their behaviors pre- and post intervention by two series of scale, ie. self ratings and teacher ratings. Self ratings included 'misbehavior scales' and 'violent behavior subscale'; teacher ratings included 'teacher-children rating scale' and 'detection of misbehavior scale'. RESULT: 1)In self-rating scales, the misbehavior of the subject group decreased more than the coltrol group, but not the violent scale. There were statistically significant group differences of improving effect in misbehavior scales. 2)In teacher rating scales, there was no significant decrease in the behavioral problems of the subject group. 3)By teams there were significant different intervention effects among 4 teams in self rating misbehavior scale. Team 2 improved on all scales except teacher-rating detection of misbehavior scale. 4)Determinant factors of intervention effect on behavioral problems were the degree of baseline behavioral problems, sex of subjects and therapist. CONCLUSION: The results from this study suggest that cognitive-behavioral group therapy was effective in decreasing the behavioral problems of adolescents. But the effect of therapy depends on sex, the degree of behavioral problems of subjects and the therapist.