Recent research proclaimed the importance of incorporating programs for promoting wellbeing and creativity in schools. However, psychological wellbeing received only limited attention and only few interventions aimed at its promotion in childhood. This research aimed to compare the efficacy of an intervention based on storytelling and narrative techniques vs a control condition. Additionally, we also tested if this school positive intervention was effective in improving the creativity of schoolchildren.
A total of 165 students (78 girls, 87 boys; Mage= 9.3 years; SD= 0.5) were randomized to a School Positive Narrative Intervention (4 sessions) or to a controlled condition. Children were assessed before, after intervention and at 3 month follow-up with self-reports of wellbeing, anxiety, depression and somatization. A storytelling task was implemented and specific creativity storytelling scores were calculated for the stories produced by children during the intervention.
At post intervention, children assigned to the narrative intervention reported increased levels of wellbeing and decreased depression, anxiety and somatization, compared to controls. These improvements were maintained at 3-month follow-up. Higher scores on creativity emerged in stories focused on fear, sadness and happiness. This intervention was brief, but it was able to yield many benefits in wellbeing and in distress.
The use of narrative strategies may help children to identify their personal resources, to express creativity and to assimilate the concept of existential wellbeing that could be difficult to process because of its abstractness and multidimensional nature.