Sažetak

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of motivational psychotherapy on students’ anxiety sensitivity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: The method of this study was pretest-posttest experiment with a control group. The statistical population of the study included all the students of the Islamic Azad University of Qaenat in 2022. From this statistical population, 265 people were selected as a sample based on Cochran’s formula and by means of the voluntary sampling method. They filled out the anxiety sensitivity questionnaire (pretest) and then, among those who met the criteria for entering the study, 40 people were selected as a sample by random sampling, and were randomly divided into two groups – experimental group and control group (each group consisting of 20 people). The experimental group underwent motivational psychotherapy for 8 sessions (Sahebdel and Tahan, 2022) and the control group did not receive any intervention. At the end, both groups answered the research tools again (posttest). Multivariate covariance analysis was used to analyze the data. Findings: The results showed that there is a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of anxiety sensitivity in the pretest and posttest (p<0.05). Therefore, motivational psychotherapy has reduced students’ anxiety sensitivity during the COVID-19 pandemic.