INTERVENTION EFFECT OF RESEARCH-BASED PSYCHOLOGICAL COUNSELING ON ADOLESCENTS’ MENTAL HEALTH DURING THE COVID-19 EPIDEMIC
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: This study aims to explore the intervention effect of research-based psychological counseling on adolescents' mental health during the COVID-19 epidemic. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: From May to July 2020, 160 young students were selected from 5 middle schools in Shandong Province of China as the participants of this study and were randomly divided into the experiment and control groups with 80 members in each group. The routine in-campus education of health knowledge related to the epidemic was conducted in the control group, while the experiment group received both the routine education and the intervention of psychological counseling in combination with outdoor exercise. RESULTS: No significant difference exists between the experiment and control groups (P>0.05) before the intervention, but the scores of the experiment group in anxiety and depression are lower than those of the control group (P<0.05) after the intervention; the PSQI score of the experiment group is significantly lower after the intervention, suggesting that the effect on the experiment group is better than the control group (P<0.05); the scores of the experiment group in psychological resilience and its 5 dimensions are higher than those of the control group (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: This intervention model has a good intervention effect on adolescents' mental health and psychological resilience. At the same time, this study enlightens the introduction of the research-based psychological counseling model when helping adolescents solve mental health problems and highlights the important role of exercise in improving adolescents' mental health and psychological resilience.
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In five included studies, adolescents were selected based on elevated scores of anxiety, depressive symptoms or vulnerability, representing a higher risk population but without a clinical diagnosis.
“Although inclusion criteria were concerned with the general population, in five studies adolescents were selected based on elevated scores of anxiety, depressive symptoms or vulnerability [42, 43, 47, 51, 52] representing a higher risk population but without a clinical diagnosis.”
From Interventions to build resilience and to ameliorate negative psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis (2024) · cites this paper as [47]
The Participants section (page unavailable) says adolescents were screened with the SAS and SDS scales and selected after scoring ≥50, supporting this study’s inclusion in the group selected for elevated symptoms. It describes participants as having anxiety symptoms, but does not establish that none had a clinical diagnosis. The count of five studies belongs to the citing paper’s synthesis, not to this individual source. (LLM, conf=0.82)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredSix interventions were considered school-based.
“In regard to settings, six interventions were considered school-based [4, 42, 43, 45, 47, 48, 50] where interventions took place either at school or during (online) classes, or alternatively, participants were assigned to interventions based on their class affiliation (clustered study design).”
From Interventions to build resilience and to ameliorate negative psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis (2024) · cites this paper as [47]
The Abstract says participants were selected from five middle schools and the control group received in-campus education, supporting a school connection. But the Participants and Methods sections describe recruitment from communities, individual random assignment, community health education, and outdoor exercise; they do not establish that the counseling intervention took place at school, during classes, or by class assignment. This paper alone cannot verify the count of six interventions. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredSeven studies (eight interventions) reporting on anxiety and five studies (six interventions) reporting on depression were included in meta-analyses.
“Of these studies seven studies (eight interventions) reporting on anxiety [42–48] and five studies (six interventions) reporting on depression [43, 45–47, 49] were included in meta-analyses.”
Nine interventions took place several times per week.
“in conclusion, four interventions took place once per week [45, 46, 50, 54] or several times per week (n = 9) [42–44, 47–49, 51–53].”
The duration varied between seven and twelve weeks in seven studies.
“The duration varied between one and five weeks in six studies [44–46, 48, 50, 53] and between seven and twelve weeks in seven studies [42, 43, 47, 49, 51, 52, 54].”
Interventions were predominantly delivered online except in three studies.
“In summary, interventions were predominantly delivered online except in three studies [47, 51, 54].”
Six interventions included components promoting physical activity, while one intervention involved an art intervention.
“Apart from components that are based on different psychological approaches, six interventions included components promoting physical activity [42, 47–49, 51, 52] while one intervention involved an art intervention [45].”
Most interventions comprised group sessions, while two interventions were self-guided or parent-guided.
“Most interventions comprised group sessions [42, 43, 45, 47–54] while two interventions were self-guided [46] or parent-guided [44].”
Control conditions comprised no treatment or waitlist-control, active control, and alternative active control.
“Control conditions comprised no treatment or waitlist-control [44, 49, 51, 53, 54], active control (predominantly health education) [4, 42, 43, 47, 48, 52] and alternative active control (e.g. Mandala drawing, mindfulness-based meditation, expressing emotions) [45, 46, 50].”
Narrative synthesis of studies analyzing resilience, mental wellbeing, and psychological wellbeing found a positive effect of interventions on the respective outcomes compared to controls.
“Narrative synthesis of studies analyzing resilience [42, 53], mental wellbeing [47] and psychological wellbeing [51] found a positive effect of interventions on the respective outcomes compared to controls (Fig. 4).”
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- Authors
- School of Physical Education, Y. U., Zhang, J., Zhou, Z., Shanghai University of Sport, S., Zhang, W., & Shandong Sport University, J.
- Affiliations
- Yantai University (CN)
- Shanghai University of Sport (CN)
- Shandong Sport University (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Zhang, Jianpeng
- Venue
- Psychiatria Danubina
- Publisher
- Medicinska Naklada d.o.o.
- Published
- 2021-06-25
- Volume
- 33
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 209-216
- ISSN
- 0353-5053 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3175369480
- Cited by
- 43
- References
- 19
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 8
- FWCI
- 4.77
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Locations
- Psychiatria Danubina (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Hrčak Portal of scientific journals of Croatia (University Computing Centre) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Student Stress and Coping
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Keywords
- psychological counseling, adolescent mental health, COVID-19 pandemic, psychological resilience, anxiety, depression, sleep quality, outdoor exercise, junior high school students, school-based intervention
- MeSH terms
- COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Adolescent, China, Counseling, Humans, Mental Health, Epidemics
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