Effect of Cognitive Group Therapy on State and Trait Anxiety of Anxious Female Adolescents

Anxiety is considered a significant public health concern, and is one of the main psychological disorders during adolescence. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of cognitive group therapy in reducing state and trait anxiety among female adolescents with anxiety.

This is an open-label randomized controlled clinical trial with a pre-test/post-test/follow-up design. The study population consists of female students in the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades from a high school in Sari (District one), Iran. Of these, 30 students were selected using a convenience sampling method. The subjects were randomly divided into two groups of 15 people, intervention and control. Cognitive group therapy intervention was conducted for the intervention group for 12 weekly sessions of 90 minutes. There was no intervention for the control group. Participants completed Spielberger’s State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and data analysis was performed using repeated measures analysis of variance in SPSS software, version 22.

In the pre-test, post-test, and follow-up phases, the mean score of state anxiety, were 46.066±9.277, 23.533±4.763, and 33.6±10.479, respectively. For the trait anxiety, the scores were 51.533±10.246, 26.133±5.111,and 31.400±9.014, respectively. These scores showed a significant decrease in the post-test and follow-up phases compared to the pre-test phase (P<0.05). No significant differences were observed in the control group. Cognitive group therapy significantly reduced both state (F=17.407, P=0.001) and trait anxiety (F=17.759, P=0.001) in anxious adolescents.

The cognitive group therapy is effective in reducing state and trait anxiety of anxious female adolescents. This therapy can be used along with other psychological interventions in educational settings to reduce the psychological problems of anxious adolescents.