Purpose: psychological distress is associated with unpleasant mental states such as depression, anxiety and stress, on the other hand, psychological hardiness is a person's ability to successfully deal with adverse conditions and remain healthy Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of the effectiveness of spiritual therapy on psychological hardiness and psychological distress of students.
Materials and Methods: The current research was semi-experimental with a pre-test and post-test design with a control group. The research population included all ninth grade male students of Tankabon city in the academic year of 2022-2023, out of which 30 people were selected using the available sampling method and randomly replaced in two experimental and control groups. The data collection tools were the questionnaires of psychological hardiness by Kiamerei et al. (2007) and psychological distress by Kessler et al. (2002). The experimental group received spiritual skills training in 8 sessions of 60 minutes for two months, but the control group did not receive any training and were placed on the waiting list. To analyze the data, the statistical test of univariate and multivariate analysis of covariance was used with SPSS version 24 software.
Result:The results showed that spiritual therapy had a significant effect on psychological hardiness and psychological distress of students (P<0.01); And it has led to the improvement of psychological well-being and reduction of psychological distress of students.
Conclusion: Based on the results, spiritual therapy can be used as an efficient method to increase psychological hardiness and reduce psychological distress of students.