Guided Narrative Technique After Coronavirus Outbreak Influencing Positive and Negative Emotions and Cognition for Children--A Randomized Controlled Trial

Peking University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Anxiety and Depression

Treatments: Behavioral: Guided Narrative Technique (GNT) drawing; Behavioral: Guided Narrative Technique (GNT) Writing; Behavioral: School-based CBT intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06708442

Hubei primary school RCT

Details and patient eligibility

About

At the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 broke out in Wuhan, raging across the country quickly afterwards. As a sudden public health emergency, this epidemic caused some stress reactions (including emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactions) in children. These stress responses, in moderation, may be beneficial as a response to the challenge. However, excessive, and inappropriate stress responses may damage children's mental health, immune function, and daily function.

School-based CBT intervention is effective in alleviating children and adolescent anxiety. However, the effect last only shortly. Therefore, adding a new intervention component is necessary. Guided Narrative Technique (GNT) is an intervention focusing on narrative coherence and emotional expression. It has writing and drawing versions. The writing version was developed from Expressive Writing and has a significant effect on the improvement of various negative emotions and negative cognitions of traumatized individuals.

In this study, a randomized controlled experiment will be implemented. All participants will take a CBT course first. Then, they will be asked to write or draw about the epidemic or other life events using GNT. The study will explore the impact of CBT course combined with GNT on negative emotions and cognition of children after such a public crisis.

Enrollment: 220 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 8 to 14 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• have the ability to read and write in Chinese

Exclusion criteria

• no parental consent

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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220 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention Writing Group A (WA)

Experimental group

Description:

First, the guardian of the participant will read the informed consent. After the guardian signs the informed consent, the participant will complete the demographic, emotional and cognitive pre-assessment. The participant will then receive a group cognitive behavioral intervention for 40 minutes each day in the following 3 days. The intervention will take place in school classrooms in a format similar to offline school classes. The therapists are one senior undergraduate and one first-year PhD student from the School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences who have received sufficient training. The intervention based on the theory of children's cognitive behavioral therapy, with a self-compiled manual. The three sessions are aimed at emotional awareness and management, thoughts recognition, and coping. Each session will be accompanied by the presence of the head teachers.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Guided Narrative Technique (GNT) Writing

Behavioral: School-based CBT intervention

Drawing Group A (DA)

Active Comparator group

Description:

For DA group, the procedures of informed consent, pre assessments, cognitive behavior group intervention, and follow-up assessments will be the same as those for WA. After completing the group intervention, the participants in DA will be required to complete the GNT drawing in accordance with the guidelines at a fixed time each day, under the guidance and supervision of the school teachers, and to complete two short mood tests and the post-painting assessments in the following 3 days. Each drawing session will last for 20-30 minutes.

Treatment:

Behavioral: School-based CBT intervention

Behavioral: Guided Narrative Technique (GNT) drawing