The Effectiveness of an Islamic-Oriented Group Counseling Package for Depression Treatment on Cognitive Emotion Regulation and Rumination in Adolescent Girls with Depression

Adolescence presents significant challenges for emotion regulation and represents a critical period for the emergence of various psychological disorders, particularly internalizing disorders such as anxiety and depression. The present study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of an Islamic-oriented group counseling package for depression treatment on cognitive emotion regulation and rumination. This mixed-method research was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, the group counseling package based on the Islamic model of depression treatment developed by Fayaz (2017) was revised and validated using the Content Validity Ratio (CVR) and Content Validity Index (CVI). In the second phase, the study employed a quasi-experimental design with pretest-posttest and follow-up assessments, including a control group. The statistical population consisted of depressed adolescent girls in Isfahan, from which 30 participants were purposefully selected and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group received 12 sessions of Islamic-oriented group counseling, each lasting 60 minutes. Research instruments included the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ), and the Ruminative Responses Scale (RRS). Repeated measures ANOVA revealed that, in both posttest and follow-up phases, the mean scores for cognitive emotion regulation and rumination in the experimental group significantly decreased compared to the control group (P < 0.05). Therefore, the Islamic-oriented group counseling package can be considered an effective and complementary intervention for use in counseling centers, schools, and other educational settings for depressed adolescents.