Abstract
Background: Several school-based cognitive behavioral intervention programs have been developed to prevent and improve children’s anxiety disorders. Most programs require a duration of more than 10 hours for completion. We developed a cognitive behavioral program called “Journey of the Brave.” The study aimed to examine the effectiveness of the brief version of the program among 10- to 11-year-old children using 20-minute short classroom activities. Methods: A total of 90 children were divided into two groups (the intervention group, n=31 and the control group, n=59). The control group did not attend any program sessions and followed the regular school curriculum. We conducted fourteen weekly program sessions and assessed children at pre-intervention, post-intervention, and at 2-month follow-up (6 months after the start). The primary outcome measure was children’s anxiety symptoms, measured using the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS), and the secondary outcome measure was behavior problems, measured using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ).Results: A statistically significant reduction in the SCAS score in the intervention group was found at 2-month follow up compared with the control group. Significant reduction was also observed in the SDQ score. Conclusions: Our study suggested that this “Journey of the Brave” program, which requires only 5 hours using short classroom activities, demonstrated a similar effectiveness as the previous programs, which required over 10 hours.Trial registration: UMIN, UMIN000009021, Registered 10 March 2012, https://upload.umin.ac.jp/cgi-open-bin/icdr/ctr_view.cgi?recptno=R000010575
School-based behavioral intervention to reduce the habit of smokeless tobacco and betel quid use in high-risk youth in Karachi: A randomized controlled trial
