Reducing Test Anxiety in High School Students

Agrupamento de Centros de Saúde de Dão Lafões

Status: Completed

Conditions: Test Anxiety

Treatments: Behavioral: Intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05481099

Anxiety-2020

Details and patient eligibility

About

School-age test anxiety is an important risk factor for school performance. Notwithstanding, few studies seek to identify which strategies are effective in improving test anxiety. This study aimed to test whether a cognitive-behavioural intervention for high school students could significantly reduce test anxiety.

A two-arm, cluster-randomized controlled, unblinded, parallel, trial was conducted. Participants were students of the 10th year of the Alves Martins High School in Viseu, Portugal. Students were randomized at class level to receive a cognitive-behavioural-based intervention combined with mindfulness, psychoeducation, and relaxation techniques, or to a control group with no intervention. Participants' anxiety levels were measured using the Test Anxiety Questionnaire. The analysis of the effect of the intervention was carried out on an intention-to-treat basis at the class level, using multilevel mixed effects models and Bayesian modelling.

Enrollment: 519 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• 10th grade students; both students and parents provide written informed consent

Exclusion criteria

• cognitive inability to answer the questionnaire and/or to participate in the intervention

Trial design

Primary purpose: Supportive Care

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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519 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Cognitive-behavioural-based intervention combined with mindfulness, psychoeducation, and relaxation techniques

Treatment:

Behavioral: Intervention

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Care as usual