Iranian Journal of Rehabilitation Research in Nursing

Introduction: cunctation is a behavioral phenomenon described by repeatedly postponing one's duties so that it causes stress, feeling guilty and acute decreases in personal efficiency. This malbehavioral phenomenon would lead to lose of the individual's social acceptance and inflicts problems in social interactions due to lack of commitment to fulfill tasks and responsibilities. So the purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of cunctation-based cognitive-behavioral intervention on high school students' self-esteem, Educational performance and procrastination in the town of Delphan. Methods: this study was conducted through experimental method and with pretest- posttest, and control group design. The statistical population included all high school male students in Noor Abad (Delphan) in academic year 2013-14. In order to do the study 60 students with history of procrastination problems were selected through simple random sampling method and were randomly assigned into three experimental and one control groups (15 students in each group). The measurement instruments included APSS test developed by Solomon and Rothblum (1984), Rosenberg self-esteem scale and also the students' semester average scores. In the process of administration, the experimental group received 10 sessions of cunctation-based cognitive-behavioral training and the control group didn't receive any intervention. The achieved data were analyzed using Covariance statistical method with SPSS version 20 software. Results: Covariance analysis showed that cunctation-based cognitive-behavioral training was effective in the students' educational performance, self-esteem and procrastination and it led to the improvement of educational performance and self-esteem (P<0.001) and procrastination suppression (P<0.001) in procrastinated students. Conclusion: generally it can be pointed out that cunctation-based cognitive-behavioral training would lead to the increase of mental health (self-esteem) and it is effective in management of procrastination behaviors.