A pilot outcome study on psychological training groups in the Academic setting

The group is largely adopted as a professional training context as it supports the shaping of specific competences via intersubjective exchanges (Pojaghi, 2000). Here we present a mixed method pilot study on two different academic group training programs proposed within the Master Degree in Clinical and Health Psychology at the University of Florence in 2015. The participants included 98 students (90% females, aged 25±3 years) who spontaneously decided to attend either a Phenomenological Group (PG) activity (N=46), focusing on discussing testimonies from health care professionals and parents in a Pediatric Neurosurgery Ward (Lauro Grotto, Tringali, Papini, 2014) or a Team-Working (TWG) activity, focusing on development of a Health Psychology intervention project (N=52). Both programs involved a collective presentation of the training programs, 6 sessions of small group activity and a feedback meeting in the large group. The quantitative assessment was designed as a pre-test post-test comparison including relational and interpersonal dimentions: the Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ, Feeney et al., 1994), the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP-32, Horowitz et al., 2000), the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (RSES, Rosenberg, 1965), the Relationship Questionnaire (RQ, Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991) and the Group Questionnaire (GQ, Krogel, 2008). In the PG students, a variation in the dimension of the Self-with-respect-to-the-Other (IIP-32) reached statistical significance (t=3.02, p<0.01), while in the TW students we observed a significant reduction of the Dominance/Control subscale of the IIP-32 (t=-2.27, p<0.05) and of RES (t=-2.79, p<0.01). Only the PG students took part in the qualitative investigation which explored the perceived impact of the group activity on the participants with a written questionnaire. A consensual content analysis produced detailed phenomenological categories in the domain of personal Needs and Resources perceived by the participants.