Step 1: Problem Formulation
Whenever students transfer from one college to another, it becomes hard for them to settle immediately and adjust to the new environment. During the transition period, the affected students tend to suffer from stress, which if not addressed could quickly degenerate to depression, thus making it hard for students to perform in the new school. This scenario underscores the case with Andrew.
Andrew is a 19 years old student who transferred to St. Johns College from his former college. The transfer meant that he would be moving into a new environment.
In his former college, Andrew operated as a day scholar where he could always go home in the evening and spend time with his parents. Besides, he had many friends, and the former college helped students in selecting the appropriate subjects to undertake. The college also took students through a counseling session, which enabled them to identify their religious beliefs and values. Unfortunately, Andrew transferred right before he could enjoy all these services, which were available in his former college.
Moreover, the transfer meant that he could no longer stay with his parents. Besides, he had to make new friends coupled with the responsibility of making all the decisions by himself. This aspect has pushed Andrew into depression. He suffers from psychomotor agitation, indecisiveness, hypersomnia, and is ever moody.
In a bid to address these challenges, the college’s dean advised Andrew to visit Good Hope Hospital for assistance. The hospital offers psychiatric services to people suffering from depression. The institution has to come up with the most appropriate method of helping Andrew to cope with his current problem and continue with his studies.
One of the best approaches is Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT). This approach helps in coping with irrationalities in depressive thinking. Besides, it can help in addressing other factors that lead to depression, like fear, anxiety, and intolerance to frustration. The therapy addresses not only depression, but also all possible thoughts that might lead to depression.
REBT follows the assumption that everyone is accountable to his or her actions and emotions. Besides, it believes that an individual may develop realistic views through practice and it is possible for an individual to establish deeper acceptance of oneself in life. Consequently, I hypothesize that Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy is a comprehensive approach for addressing depression among new college students.
Step 2: Search & Research development
This study aims at looking at the effectiveness of using Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy approach in addressing depression and all elements that lead to depression among students in colleges.
Google Scholar is one of the best sources that offer numerous scholarly articles that discuss REBT and its effectiveness in dealing with multiple levels of depression. For instance, it provided numerous articles touching on rational emotive behavioral therapy. In a bid to narrow down the number of sources, I had to include the term “depression” in my search. Numerous scholars have already come up with articles on how REBT facilitates in dealing with depression and depressive emotions.
Besides, there exist various books touching on the same. Nevertheless, for the sake of this proposal, I opted to use journals for my research. In the end, I summarized three journals that touched on rational emotive behavioral therapy and how it helps in dealing with depression.
Ilu, A. (2006). Fostering emotional adjustment among Nigerian adolescents with rational emotive behavior therapy. Educational Research Quarterly, 29(3), 21-29.
The study is aimed at assessing the efficiency of rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) in promoting emotional changes among adolescents in Nigeria. The pollsters selected fifty students randomly and assigned them to different groups for examination.
The students were taken through therapy twice per week for six weeks, and their response recorded. The researchers identified that Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy played a critical purpose in helping the participants to overcome anxiety and depression. The level of depression among the students decreased significantly.
The pollsters learned that REBT played a noteworthy role in reducing the chances of depression among adolescents. Consequently, schools in Nigeria integrated REBT principles in their depression treatment strategies as a way of enhancing the learning environment and curbing cases of depression among students. Such findings are essential since they prove that REBT is one of the most appropriate methods of addressing depression among students in colleges.
David, D., Szentagotai, A., Lupu, V., & Cosman, D. (2008). Rational emotive behavior therapy, cognitive therapy, and medication in the treatment of major depressive disorder: a randomized clinical trial, posttreatment outcomes, and six-month follow-up. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 64(6), 728-746.
The study undertook a randomized clinical test to assess the comparative effectiveness of rational emotive behavior therapy, pharmacotherapy, and cognitive therapy in treating depressive disorders. The study involved 170 patients. The patients were randomly assigned to REBT, cognitive, and medical treatment for 14 weeks.
The researchers used both the Hamilton Rating Scale and the Beck Depression Inventory to analyze the results. After the test, no disparities among treatment conditions were recorded. On the other hand, the Hamilton Rating Scale showed a significant effect of rational emotive behavior therapy in addressing depressive disorders relative to the other methods. This study proved that REBT is the most effective method of treating depression relative to all the other available methods.
Rieckert, J., & Moller, A. T. (2000). Rational-emotive behavior therapy in the treatment of adult victims of childhood sexual abuse. Journal of Rational-Emotive and Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 18(2), 87-101.
This research sought to examine the efficacy of rational emotive behavior therapy in treating adult victims who suffered sexual abuse in their early life. The pollsters used a sample of 42 women that sought to be assisted in coping with psychological agony caused by the sexual ordeal they encountered in their childhood. The researchers came up with two groups, viz. delayed treatment and treatment control groups.
Those assigned to the treatment group went through a Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy that lasted for 10 weeks. They later participated in a follow-up therapy that took eight weeks. The participants in this group showed noteworthy reductions in depression. On the other hand, women placed under delayed treatment did not show improvement in their level of depression. From the research, it is clear that rational emotive behavior therapy is a major therapy for depression.
Step3: Develop a research proposal for EBP
Significance of the study
The main objective of the study is to show that Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy facilitates addressing depression among people. The study hypothesizes that Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy is a comprehensive approach for addressing depression among new college students. This study is very critical since for decades psychiatrists have used varied methods like cognitive therapy and pharmacotherapy in treating depression without success. The results from this study would help psychiatrists in changing their approach for treating patients suffering from depression, thus averting cases of such people succumbing to depression and ultimately committing suicide.
Research Question
The study seeks to prove that rational emotive therapy is the most effective method of addressing depression among new college students. The research is deductive; hence, the pollsters will gather information from Good Hope Hospital to facilitate in ascertaining the established hypothesis. The scholars will be testing REBT, and thus it will be the independent variable while depression will be the dependent variable for the study.
Sampling method
For accurate conclusion, the study will come up with appropriate sample size. Due to time limitation, all those included in the sample population will come from Good Hope Hospital. Hence, the pollsters will identify 60 patients out of all patients admitted in the hospital due to depression. The researchers will analyze each patient at a time to understand all their challenges and how they are responding to the treatment.
The study will be qualitative, and thus it will use a non-probability technique in coming up with its sample population. The study will obtain its sample through the criterion-based approach. It will identify participants from the population of patients suffering from depression since these patients have all the requisite features that will facilitate in determining the credibility of the research hypothesis. It will effectively help in determining if rational emotive behavior therapy helps in addressing depression.
Measurement
The study will come up with conclusions based on measurements obtained from the different features exhibited by the sample population. In this study, depression is the dependent variable and has various levels. The study will use the Hamilton Rating Scale for depression and the Beck Depression Inventory to obtain the measurements. The Hamilton Rating Scale for depression is an effective measurement method that facilitates in measuring the level of all the depressive disorders the patient experiences (Hamilton, 1960).
Hence, this method will facilitate in determining the effectiveness of REBT in treating depression by measuring the level of all the depressive disorders. The factors measured using this method include agitation (measured on a three-point scale), suicide (a score of 4 will indicate an attempt at suicide), and loss of interest (an individual rated 4 shows loss of interest) among others.
Also, the study will use the Beck Depression Inventory in identifying the level of depression among the sampled patients. Some of the benefits of using these methods of measurement lie in the fact that they have a high level of internal uniformity and they accurately give the distinction between depressed and non-depressed patients (Richter et al., 1998).
Consequently, the methods will help in identifying those patients that are and are not responding to the treatment. The major objective of the study is to determine if rational emotive behavior therapy facilitates in treating depression and this element is only ascertainable by measuring the level of depression in patients undertaking the treatment.
Research design
The appropriate research design to apply in this study is a cross-sectional descriptive correlational design. Cross-Sectional research calls for all data to be gathered within a short span or at once. The design is crucial when there is adequate literature that gives an insight into the relationship between the various variables of the study (Brink & Wood, 1998). Currently, there exist numerous studies touching on Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy and its effects in treating depression.
Hence, it would be imperative to use a cross-sectional design in this study. Besides the availability of numerous studies that touch on REBT and its effectiveness in treating depression, other factors make the cross-sectional descriptive correlational design the most appropriate for this study.
One of the factors is that the design studies the variables as they are and does not attempt to change them to meet its objectives. Hence, it is the best method that would give accurate information, thus coming up with accurate conclusions (Brink & Wood, 1998).
The investigation will examine the different variables of interest through the administration of questionnaires on the selected patients. The participants will be asked to respond to the questionnaires based on their present experience, which will facilitate in measuring the various variables of interest accurately, thus eliminating the possibility of manipulating the involved variables.
Another factor that qualifies this design as the most effective one is that the correlational analysis will be carried within the hospital. The data collection process will be completed within the hospital. Hence, no information gathered outside the natural environment of the patients will be included in the study.
According to Brink and Wood, “descriptive correlation design utilizes a sample that represents the populations of interest” (1998, p. 83). In this case, the population will comprise all patients admitted to Good Hope Hospital with signs of depression. Using a sample from this population will facilitate in determining how the selected patients are responding to the therapy.
By using the criterion-based approach, the pollsters will ensure that the entire population is effectively represented. Failure to represent the entire population accurately may result in pollsters obtaining skewed results. In return, this aspect would be detrimental to psychiatrists and other doctors attending to patients suffering from depression.
The main limitation of this design is that it might allow the pollsters to compromise the collected data. The researchers will only use patients from the hospital. Hence, they will not have a comparison group (Grimes & Schulz, 2002), and thus the inferences the researchers will emanate from the information they will collect from the patients. It will be hard to get information about causal effects, associations, and other aspects, which might affect the conclusion and thus compromise the results of the study.
Findings and expectations
The objective of this study is to prove that Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy is an effective method of treating depression among new college students. Such results may facilitate in helping college students who in most cases drop out of schools due to depression as well as those that end up committing suicide or killing their colleagues.
Information obtained will not only be of significant help to the psychiatrists responsible for treating students referred to them with signs of depression but will also help colleges to come up with counseling strategies that might help in curbing cases of depression among new students.
For this case, I recommend that further research on this area should be done to come up with accurate information. Moreover, the scholars ought to evaluate the information obtained consistently through this study to ensure that they identify the most appropriate way of helping people suffering from depression.
References
Brink, P., & Wood, M. J. (1998). Advanced design in nursing research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
David, D., Szentagotai, A., Lupu, V., & Cosman, D. (2008). Rational emotive behavior therapy, cognitive therapy, and medication in the treatment of major depressive disorder: a randomized clinical trial, posttreatment outcomes, and six-month follow-up. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 64(6), 728-746.
Grimes, D. & Schulz, K. (2002). Descriptive studies: what they can and cannot do. The Lancet, 359(9301), 145-149.
Hamilton, M. (1960). A rating scale for depression. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 23(1), 56-62.
Ilu, A. (2006). Fostering emotional adjustment among Nigerian adolescents with rational emotive behavior therapy. Educational Research Quarterly, 29(3), 21-29.
Richter, P., Werner, J., Heerlein, A., Kraus, A., & Sauer, H. (1998). On the validity of the Beck Depression Inventory. Psychopathology, 31(3), 160-168.
Rieckert, J. & Moller, A. T. (2000). Rational-emotive behavior therapy in the treatment of adult victims of childhood sexual abuse. Journal of Rational-Emotive and Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 18(2), 87-101.