Emotions in our lives: The evaluation of a user-centered training course »Living E-motions« in the context of recovery of people with mental health challenges
Karin Bakračevič*, Saša Zorjan*, Sara Tement*, Louise Christie**, Bojan Musil*
*Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor, Slovenia
**Scottish Recovery Network, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Background and aims:
This paper aims to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of a training course »Living e-Motions« for people living with mental health challenges in the context of their recovery. The course was developed in the joint project of partners from Spain, Estonia, Slovenia, and the United Kingdom. The curriculum of the course is focused on emotional education. It uses a narrative approach as a practical way for participants to explore and regulate their emotions and consequently take charge of their recovery.
Methods:
Seventeen participants were included in the pilot training in Spain and Estonia. The impact of the training was assessed on measures of life satisfaction, emotion regulation, positive and negative affect, and recovery at baseline and directly after training.
Results:
The analysis revealed that participants reported higher life satisfaction, emotion regulation skills, positive affect, and recovery after the training. However, due to the small sample size, the mean differences did not reach statistical significance. Further studies on larger samples are needed to test the effectiveness of the training course.
Conclusions:
Pilot study findings are encouraging and show that the developed training course has a potential for improving key competencies and abilities needed in daily life, concretely in emotion regulation, positive and negative affect, life satisfaction, and recovery. Further research on larger samples that would also include a control group is needed.