Author(s)

Gülay Oğuz¹, Müge Yılmaz², Saime Çağlı³, F. Mükerrem Güven⁴, M. Zihni Sungur⁵

¹Department of Psychology, Canik Basari University, Samsun, Turkey.
²Department of Psychological Counselling and Guidance, Canik Basari University, Samsun, Turkey.
³Simurg Educational Consulting Firm, Samsun, Turkey.
⁴Alcohol and Substance Dependency Research and Practice Center, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey.
⁵Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of the cognitive-behavioral oriented awareness program on depression levels of obese individuals. Both the experimental and control group included 20 individuals. A pre and post-test research model was used in this study. Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was the scale applied to both of the study groups. Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon signed-rank test were used to find out if meaningful differences emerged between the pre-test and post-test scores of control and experimental group. It was found that this awareness program had positive effects on BDI scores. Post test scores showed significant difference between the experimental and the control groups. No significant difference was found between pre and post-test BDI scores in the control group. The findings are discussed irrelevance to available literature, and some suggestions have been made regarding using the Awareness Program to reduce depression in obese individuals.

Awareness Program, Cognitive-Behavioral Approach, Obesity, Depression

Oğuz, G. , Yılmaz, M. , Çağlı, S. , Güven, F. and Sungur, M. (2014) Effects of a Cognitive-Behavioral Oriented Awareness Program on Depression Levels of Obese Individuals. Open Access Library Journal, 1, 1-5. doi: 10.4236/oalib.1100905.