Effect of cognitive behaviour therapy on the improvement of psychological stress

Abstract

BACKGROUND: College freshmen, as a special group who are far away from their parents and begin to study and live independently, will face psychological stress in adaption to the college life, which may affect their working and living conditions in the university and even after entering the society if not solved reasonably. Hence, it is necessary to explore how to relieve the psychological stress of freshmen. OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to analyze the intervention effects of cognitive behavioral therapy on social psychological stress of freshmen under different demographic variables. METHODS: 108 freshmen of Northeast Agricultural University were divided into the experimental group and control group. The correlation between psychological stress and impulse, self-esteem, and loneliness was analyzed using structural equation model and multiple regression. The experimental group received group training for one month, while the control group did not accept any intervention. The Fear of Negative Evaluation (FNE) Scale, Interaction Anxiousness Scale (IAS), and Interpersonal Efficacy Scale (IES) were used to score students before and after activities and three months after activities. The relevant information was collected for students’ self-evaluation and the evaluation results from group teachers. RESULTS: The subjects’ social psychological stress was positively correlated with loneliness and unplanned impulse, and negatively correlated with self-esteem (P < 0.001); the IAS and FNE scores of the experimental group after test were greatly lower than those of the control group, while the scores of affinity efficacy, communication efficacy, and emotional control were greatly higher than those of the control group (P < 0.05); the tracking IAS and FNE scores of the experimental group were greatly lower than those of the control group, while the scores of affinity efficacy, self-impression efficacy, communication efficacy, and emotional control were greatly higher than those of the control group (P < 0.05). All students in the experimental group were satisfied with the cognitive behavioral group training. Under the positive guidance of the team teacher, the students’ psychological stress was released. CONCLUSIONS: The cognitive behavior group training based on impulse, self-esteem, and loneliness can effectively improve the affinity efficacy, self-impression efficacy, communication efficacy, and negative evaluation fear of freshmen, which is instrumental in easing the psychological stress of students and can maintain long-term effects.