Evaluation of the Anger Management Intervention Program, the Mini-Diamond, Targeted Primary School Students: A Controlled Trial with Focus on Well-Being

ABSTRACT

Anger and aggressive behaviour are part of everyday school-life and have been reported to be negatively associated with student well-being and academic performance. School-based interventions, developed to target anger and aggressive behaviour, are scarce. One such Danish intervention, the so-called Mini-Diamond, has been developed and implemented in several Danish municipalities. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the potential effects of the Mini-Diamond on student well-being in a controlled trial. Outcome measures included aspects of child- and parent-rated student well-being, including school connectedness, learning self-efficacy, and bullying. All children in grades 0–2 in Rødovre (intervention) and Herlev (control) municipalities participated and filled out the same questionnaires. No effects of the Mini-Diamond intervention were found on any of the outcomes. Potential reasons for this are discussed, including the possibility that there is no effect of the Mini-Diamond intervention on well-being, together with limitations and implications of the current study.

KEYWORDS:

• Well-being
• anger management
• aggression
• Mini-Diamond
• school-based intervention
• Mini-Diamanten
• children
• børnungeliv
• skolesundhed.dk
• diamantforløbene

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Camilla Obel and Maria Dressler for collaborating with us early in the process of this project.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee, and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by TrygFonden [grant numbers 114629 and 121941].