The Effectiveness of a Selective Preventive Counseling Mindfulness-Based Program and Tendency Towards Addiction on Middle School Students

This study reports the impact of a selective preventive counseling Mindfulness-Based Program and the tendency toward addiction in Middle School Students. Given that adolescents are the most vulnerable groups to drug addiction, enhancing mindfulness and reducing tendencies toward drug addiction are crucial. A pretest-posttest-follow-up design was employed for two equivalent groups, comprising (N: 22) middle school students divided into an experimental and a control group. The experimental group participated in a selective preventive counseling program, while the control group received no intervention. The Mindfulness program was assessed using the Arabic version of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (Bahiri et al., 2014), while the tendency towards addiction was assessed using the Drug Addiction Attitude Scale (DAS) (Mohammed, 1998). The findings indicated significant improvements in the Mindfulness program, along with a reduction in the tendency towards addiction in the experimental group following the selective preventive counseling program. In contrast, the control group showed negligible changes. The findings also revealed the sustained impact of the Mindfulness program for a long time (as measured in the follow-up assessment). These results highlight the long-term effectiveness of the intervention in curbing substance use tendencies by enhancing mindfulness among adolescents, particularly middle school students. The study recommends integrating selective preventive counseling programs into educational learning as a strategic initiative to improve mindfulness and its effectiveness in combating addiction. This is particularly relevant to Saudi Vision 2030, seeking to promote awareness and prevention programs to cultivate a society with a safe and high-quality life.
 
Keywords: Selective Preventive Counseling Program - Mindfulness - Tendency Toward Drug Addiction - Middle School Students