Improving coping strategies of rural adolescents in Australia and Italy

This paper reports on two studies that investigated the efficacy of a coping skills program, The Best of Coping. Whilst both focused on at risk rural students, the first reports on a sample of rural Italian adolescents at risk for juvenile psychoemotional-social problems and the second a sample of adolescents from rural Victoria, Australia at risk for depression. Italian adolescents utilised problemfocused strategies, particularly focus on the positive, post-program and showed increases in selfefficacy concerning decision-making abilities. The Australian adolescents showed overall decreases in use of non-productive coping strategies post-program with greatest reductions seen in use of selfblame