Stress prevention and stress management in childhood and adolescence

Abstract

This paper provides an overview about research activities related to stress in children and adolescents at the University of Bielefeld. In this context, two stress prevention programs related to (a) elementary school children and (b) adolescents of grades 8 and 9 were developed and evaluated. The program evaluations compared different program versions and showed favourable results for problem solving, while program versions focusing on relaxation training were less effective. This was the reason to evaluate the effects of relaxation training in children and adolescents more systematically. Different relaxation techniques were compared with providing non-tension producing stories to children and adolescents. The results showed clear short-term effects of relaxation training although this effect was also produced by non-tension producing stories. The use of additional e-learning units is addressed in the final parts of the paper as a way of increasing the motivation of adolescents to participate in stress prevention training.