NEW ORLEANS – A school-based life skills training program proved feasible and was beneficial for improving anger control in African American adolescents who participated in a randomized, controlled study of the program.
Spielberger State-Trait Anger Scale scores in 52 normotensive African American adolescents who were randomized to participate in the 12-session program, which was conducted during health or physical education classes, improved significantly from a mean preintervention score of 23.0 (out of a possible 40) to a mean postintervention score of 23.9. Scores in 52 African American adolescent controls who did not participate in the program decreased significantly during the same time period from 22.1 to 20.5, Vernon A. Barnes, Ph.D., reported at a meeting sponsored by the International Society on Hypertension in Blacks.
Participants included 104 adolescents, 44% of whom were boys, with a mean age of 15.7 years. Training included 12 50-minute Williams LifeSkills Workshop sessions adapted for adolescents and conducted by teachers specifically trained to facilitate these programs. The sessions focused on stress-related coping skills, including early recognition of negative feelings, thinking before acting, deflection, problem solving, assertion, saying no, speaking clearly, listening, empathy, and building supportive relationships.
“The findings demonstrate the feasibility of conducting the Williams LifeSkills program in the school setting and its potential beneficial impact on anger control levels in African American adolescents,” Dr. Barnes of the Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, wrote in a poster.
Replication and verification of the results in a larger group with a longer follow-up is warranted, he noted.
The findings are important given that there is increasing evidence linking anger expression and trait anger/hostility with subclinical cardiovascular disease in youth and with coronary heart disease in adults, Dr. Barnes noted. Although the benefits of psychosocial-behavioral interventions for reducing coronary heart disease risk have been demonstrated in numerous trials in adults, few have evaluated their impact on youth, he added.
Two of the study's coauthors are the founder and president of Williams LifeSkills Inc. The study was supported in part by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.