effectiveness of behavioral activation and mindfulness-based interventions on emotional balance and cognitive avoidance in female students with depressive symptoms

Background: depression, a prevalent psychological disorder, significantly impacts emotional regulation and cognitive avoidance in the academic and professional performance of students. this study compares two interventions, behavioral activation and mindfulness-based, to improve emotional balance and reduce cognitive avoidance in college students experiencing depression.methods: a quasi-experimental pre-test-post-test design with a 60-day follow-up period was used in this study. the target population comprised female students at isfahan state university, isfahan, iran who exhibited depressive symptoms during the 2022-2023 academic year, and were referred to the university’s counseling center. a convenience sample of 45 participants was selected and randomly assigned to three groups of 15: behavioral activation, mindfulness-based intervention, and a control group. the scale of positive and negative experience (spane) and the cognitive avoidance questionnaire (caq) were administered to all participants at three time points. data were analyzed using repeated-measures anova and bonferroni post-hoc tests in spss version 16.results: the study found that both mindfulness-based interventions and behavioral activation significantly improved positive emotions and reduced cognitive avoidance in college students with depressive symptoms. for the mindfulness group, positive emotions increased from 15.20±5.59 to 21.00±5.75 at the post-test and then to 18.00±2.85 at follow-up. cognitive avoidance decreased from 84.66±8.33 to 67.60±7.93 at post-test and then remained stable at 66.93±6.28 at follow-up. the behavioral activation group showed similar trends, with positive emotions increasing from 16.00±6.49 to 19.20±7.07 at post-test and then decreasing to 18.53±5.05 at follow-up. cognitive avoidance decreased from 80.26±11.78 to 60.93±7.07 at post-test and then increased slightly to 61.60±7.44 at follow-up (p=0.027). while both interventions were effective, behavioral activation had a more lasting impact on positive emotions (p=0.027).conclusions: the findings of this study suggested that both behavioral activation and mindfulness-based interventions are effective in improving emotional balance and reducing cognitive avoidance in college students with depressive symptoms.