Efficacy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy With Local Wisdom and Web-Based Counseling on Generalized Anxiety Disorders and Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders in Adolescent College Girls: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND: The high academic demands experienced by students will often have an impact on the quality of their mental and physical health. The most common health problems reported are gastrointestinal disorders. This condition tends to manifest in the emergence of generalized anxiety disorders (GADs) and reduces the quality of life and productivity. The population that experiences this disorder the most is female adolescents, and this condition occurs in both South African and Indonesian populations. The use of drugs, especially benzodiazepines, often causes psychological conditions as side effects. For this reason, it is necessary to have a solution in the form of a targeted and efficient approach to reduce psychological symptoms that arise from functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs) in the form of anxiety. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to produce and implement a counseling intervention model to assist female students with GADs caused by FGID factors using an approach combining cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), web-based counseling, and local wisdom in Indonesian and South African populations. METHODS: The research subjects will comprise 118 female adolescent students from Indonesia and 118 female adolescent students from South Africa, making a total sample of 236 participants, and the study will use a prospective, parallel randomized controlled trial design. The recruitment process will begin in July 2023, and the trial will begin in August 2023. The posttest assessment data gathering will take place by November 2023. Questionnaires that will be used in this study include the Functional Gastrointestinal Disorder Checklist (FGI-Checklist) to collect data related to FGIDs and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item (GAD-7) to measure the anxiety conditions experienced by respondents. RESULTS: By adopting the intention-to-treat principle, there will be significant mean changes in GAD scores and FGID scores after exposure to this combined approach in the Indonesian and South African populations. Implementing this comprehensive intervention will improve the students' psychological symptoms related to FGIDs and ultimately enhance their overall well-being. CONCLUSIONS: This study will develop and implement a model of counseling intervention for female students with GADs obtained from FGIDs using a combination approach to CBT, web-based counseling, and local wisdom in both the Indonesian and South African populations. The trial findings will contribute to our understanding of the effects of CBT combined with local wisdom and web-based counseling approaches that mental health counselors can use to treat GAD-affected adolescent girls who have FGIDs. TRIAL REGISTRATION: UMIN Clinical Trial Registry UMIN000051386; https://tinyurl.com/yjwz8kht. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): PRR1-10.2196/50316.

Intervention for job burnout reduction among a sample of Nigerian lecturers.

BACKGROUND: One of the major issues facing Nigerian university lecturers is job burnout. In the current study, Nigerian university history lecturers were examined in respect of job burnout prior to and after an online psychological intervention that followed the rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) principles and practice. METHODS: In this study, a group randomized controlled trial approach was used, and only 80 university history lecturers with high burnout levels were included. We had 40 history lecturers participating in an online intervention group and 40 history lecturers participating in the control group. A questionnaire - Oldenburg Burnout Inventory - was used to collect data about job burnout. RESULTS: After the history lecturers underwent the online psychological intervention (online REBT), significant reductions in mean job burnout were recorded (F(1, 78) = 5756.11; P < .001). Findings show a statistically significant effects of time on burnout scores of history lecturers [F(2156) = 1323.69, P < .001, ω2 = 0.92]. There was also a significant group and time interaction effect on the participants' burnout scores [F(2156) = 1323.69, P < .001, ω2 = 0.91]. CONCLUSION: University history lecturers can benefit from online psychological intervention that targets job burnout reduction. The current study paves way for future studies to validate the efficacy of online REBT intervention among other employees who struggle with burnout problem.

Effectiveness of rational emotive behavior therapy in reducing depression among undergraduate medical students.

BACKGROUND: Studies reporting the incidence of depression among medical students have been on the increase. This research sought to determine whether rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) can be applied to help manage depression in Nigerian undergraduate medical students. METHODS: A randomized pretest/posttest control group design was used in this study. Ninety medical students with depression participated in the study and were assisted using the REBT depression manual. Using a mixed-model repeated measures analysis of variance, the researchers examined the intervention data. RESULTS: The depressive symptoms and its associated irrational beliefs among medical students in the treatment arm were significantly altered by REBT intervention at posttest and this positive outcome was sustained at follow-up in contrast to the control arm. CONCLUSION: REBT intervention significantly improves medical students' ability to overcome depression and irrational beliefs. Similar studies could be conducted in a variety of academic settings where these students can be found to expand the findings of this study.