J Korean Acad Psychiatr Ment Health Nurs JKAPMHN Journal of Korean Academy of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 1225-8482 2288-4653 The Korean Academy of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 10.12934/jkpmhn.2015.24.2.73 Original Article Effects of a Program to Enhance Ego-development on General Mental Health, Self-concept, and Depression in Elementary and Middle School Students from Low Income Families Sung Kyung Mi College of Nursing · Institute of Health Sciences, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, Korea. Corresponding author: Sung, Kyung Mi. College of Nursing · Institute of Health Sciences, Gyeongsang National University, 816-15 Jinju-daero, Jinju 660-751, Korea. Tel: +82-55-772-8246, Fax: +82-55-772-8222, sung@gnu.ac.kr 06 2015 30 06 2015 24 2 73 81 17 12 2014 17 03 2015 06 05 2015 © 2015 The Korean Academy of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 2015 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a program to enhance ego-development for elementary and middle school students from low income families.

 Methods

The study was a pretest-posttest design with a nonequivalent control group. The participants were 84 students who were admitted to after-school programs in three youth centers. Data were collected using questionnaires and analyzed using descriptive statistics, χ2-test, and t-test.

 Results

Students who were in the intervention group (n=43) showed improvements from baseline to 10 weeks in aspects of general mental health, self-concept, and depression.

 Conclusion

The results of this study indicate that the ego-development enhancing program positively affects the mental health of students from low income families.

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383 The application process of a program to enhance ego-development. The Contents of a Program to Enhance Ego-development for Elementary and Middle School Students from Low Income Families Homogeneity Test for Subjects' Characteristics (<italic>N</italic>=84)

Exp.=Experimental group; Cont.=Control group.

 Homogeneity Test for General Mental Health, Self-concept, and Depression between Experimental and Control Groups (<italic>N</italic>=84)

Exp.=Experimental group; Cont.=Control group.

 The Effects of a Program to Enhance Ego-development for Subjects' General Mental Health, Self-concept, and Depression (<italic>N</italic>=84)

Exp.=Experimental group; Cont.=Control group.