This study examined the effectiveness of a positive-thinking educational program grounded in the teachings of the Holy Quran in promoting mental health among student teachers. A quasi-experimental pretest–posttest design with a control group and a one-month follow-up assessment was employed. The statistical population comprised male undergraduate student teachers at Farhangian University of Tehran during the 2023–2024 academic year. A purposive sample of 34 participants was selected and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups, with 17 participants in each group. Data were collected using the 28-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28). Participants in the experimental group received ten 90-minute sessions of positive-thinking training developed on the basis of Quranic teachings, while the control group received no intervention. Data were analyzed using repeated-measures analysis of variance in SPSS 26.
The results indicated that the Quran-based positive-thinking intervention significantly improved overall mental health and reduced somatic symptoms, anxiety and insomnia, social dysfunction, and depression in the experimental group compared with the control group (P < 0.001). The observed effects were also maintained at the one-month follow-up. These findings suggest that a positive-thinking educational program grounded in Quranic teachings may constitute a culturally and spiritually congruent intervention for promoting mental health and reducing psychological symptoms among student teachers. Accordingly, such an indigenous, value-based approach may serve as a complementary intervention within mental health promotion programs in culturally and religiously similar contexts.