An evaluation of a six-week intervention designed to facilitate coping with psychological stress

Community dwelling Korean adults (N = 40) coping with the stress of severe mental illness were randomly assigned to a six-week differentiation furthering intervention (experimental) or a directed problem-solving treatment program (control) and administered pre- and posttreatment measures including the Morey Personality Assessment Screener (PAS) and Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT). As predicted, the experimental group showed greater improvement on 6 out of 10 mental health subscales (PAS) and on the GEFT than the controls. For the entire sample, differentiation gainers showed more improvement on three PAS subscales compared with the no change or loss in differentiation groups. A three-month follow-up showed greater attendance at mental health appointments for the experimental group over controls and for total sample differentiation gainers over nongainers. Implications are discussed of this empirically tested model of a community intervention to facilitate coping with stress and enhancing competence.