Rahgozar Shirin, Giménez-Llort Lydia
Department of Psychiatry and Forensic Medicine, School of Medicine, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
Institut de Neurociències, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
Front Psychiatry. 2024 Feb 21;15:1323774. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1323774. eCollection 2024.
The secondary impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to widespread psychological challenges, significantly strained international students' mental health. The present work sought to design and assess the efficacy of an Online Group Logotherapy Protocol, an existential psychology approach developed by Viktor Frankl, to reduce anxiety and depression levels among Iranian international students who were migrants/refugees in different European countries during the pandemic.
The study recruited 70 students (58 females and 12 males, age range 20-35, 6 EU countries) experiencing moderate levels of anxiety and depression as measured by the Beck Anxiety (BAI) and Depression (BDI) Inventories at pre-test. Half the participants received a short-term closed group intervention comprising 6 online sessions / 90 min of logotherapy. The control group received 6 sessions without specific psychological treatment.
The designed logotherapy sessions consisted of 1. Fundamentals of logotherapy, 2. Existential concerns, 3. Introspection, 4. Self-awareness and growth, 5. Empowering and facing challenges, 6. Meaning of life and conclusions. Five logotherapy techniques were used: Socratic Dialog, Modification of Attitude, Paradoxical Intention, Dereflection, and Logodrama. After the sessions, the post-test MANCOVA analysis showed a more potent effect of logotherapy reducing depression and anxiety than that elicited without intervention. The Eta coefficient suggests that the observed difference explains the effect of logotherapy with a strong power of 89%.
These findings unveil (1) the benefits of online group sessions despite the geographical distance and (2) the relevance of logotherapy effectively reducing depression and anxiety in such complex scenarios where psychological resources and cultural competencies are limited.
新冠疫情的次生影响导致了广泛的心理挑战，给国际学生的心理健康带来了巨大压力。本研究旨在设计并评估一种在线团体意义疗法方案的疗效，该方案是由维克托·弗兰克尔开发的一种存在主义心理学方法，旨在降低疫情期间在不同欧洲国家的伊朗移民/难民国际学生的焦虑和抑郁水平。
该研究招募了70名学生（58名女性和12名男性，年龄在20 - 35岁之间，来自6个欧盟国家），他们在测试前通过贝克焦虑量表（BAI）和抑郁量表（BDI）测量出有中度焦虑和抑郁水平。一半的参与者接受了为期6次在线课程/90分钟意义疗法的短期封闭团体干预。对照组接受了6次无特定心理治疗的课程。
设计的意义疗法课程包括：1. 意义疗法基础；2. 存在主义关切；3. 内省；4. 自我意识与成长；5. 赋能与面对挑战；6. 生命的意义与结论。使用了五种意义疗法技术：苏格拉底式对话、态度修正、矛盾意向、去反省和意义剧。课程结束后，测试后的协方差分析表明，与无干预相比，意义疗法在减轻抑郁和焦虑方面有更强的效果。埃塔系数表明，观察到的差异以89%的强大效力解释了意义疗法的效果。
这些发现揭示了（1）尽管存在地理距离，在线团体课程仍有好处；（2）在心理资源和文化能力有限的复杂情况下，意义疗法有效减轻抑郁和焦虑的相关性。
