Psychoeducation on Coping Mechanism and Stress Management: Evaluation Knowledge among Senior High School Students No 9, Samarinda

Abstract

Adolescence is a vulnerable period for mental health problems; globally, one in seven adolescents aged 10-19 years experiences a mental disorder, accounting for 15% of the disease burden in this age group, while in Indonesia approximately one in three adolescents aged 10-17 years reports a mental health problem within the past 12 months, yet only a small proportion seek professional help, making senior high school students a high-risk target group due to limited literacy on healthy coping mechanisms. This community service activity was carried out as a psychoeducation talkshow on coping mechanisms and stress management, delivered in two sessions at a public senior high school in Samarinda, involving all students present at each session (total sampling technique), using an identical five-item multiple-choice questionnaire for the pretest and posttest, which was analyzed descriptively and through the Normalized Gain (N-Gain) index. The results showed an increase in the mean knowledge score from 7.65 (SD 1.68) to 8.94 (SD 1.30) on a 0-10 scale among 105 matched participants, with a combined mean N-Gain of 0.45 (moderate category) that was statistically significant (Wilcoxon signed-rank test, p < 0.001); the greatest improvement in understanding occurred in the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique and in recognizing destructive coping. This school-based psychoeducation intervention proved effective in improving senior high school students' knowledge of coping mechanisms and stress management, particularly on topics with the lowest baseline literacy, underscoring the value of school-visit psychoeducation as an accessible strategy for adolescent mental health promotion.