Effect of group psychotherapy on remission of adjustment disorder in college freshmen

doi:10.3321/j.issn:1673-8225.2004.15.016

Abstract：BACKGROUND: Adjustment disorder of freshmen severely affeeted their lives, studies and interpersonal communications, but reports about the effect of group psychotherapy on adjustment disorder in mass sample is still very few.OBJECTIVE: To explore the efficacy of group psychotherapy for eliminating adjustment disorder symptoms of college freshmen.DESIGN: A retrospective control study.SETTING, PARTICIPANTS and INTERVENTIONS: Symptom Check(SGL-90) and psychological clinic interview were used in the study. Totally 1 126 freshmen from either 1999 or 2000 grades of Nanjing Medical College were adopted for screening adjustment disorder, which were randomly divided into two groups with 30 patients in each group. Basic techniques of group therapy, such as group discussion, psychodrama and relaxation were applied, and selfassessing scale and SCL-90 were combined for self-comparison after treatment.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Ghanges of mental health and self-worth of freshman were identified after treatment.served in participant(7.10 ± 1.40, 7.23 ± 1.48), self-confidence(5.87 ±2.14,7.48±1.70) andothers (t=2.01, P ＜0.05, t=3.37, P ＜0.01);While 2000 grade freshmen showed obvious improvements in sharing experience with others after treatment( t = 2.41, P ＜ 0.05), particularly in participation with higher significance(t = 3.05, P ＜ 0.01), as well as in caring Post-treatment sonatization, interpersonal communication, depression, obsessive-compulsion, anxiety, phobia and psychoticism were significantly higher than those of pretreatment in 1999 grade freshmen( t = 2.26-2.50, P ＜0.05; t = 2.88-3.15, P ＜ 0.01), the same as somatization, phobia and depression of 2000 grade freshmen( t = 2.67, 2.10, P ＜ 0.05; t = 2. 94, P ＜groups, revealing higher significant difference in caring about others, responsibility and understanding others before treatment( t = 2.09, P ＜ 0.05; t =2.80, P ＜ 0.01; t = 3.82, P ＜ 0. 001), and obviously difference in four items including caring about others, self-confidence and so on( t = 2.47,2.17, P ＜ 0.01); post-treatment mental health was compared with that of pretreatment in both groups showing unobvious difference before treatment, but reverse result was found in neuortism after treatment( t = 2.09, P ＜ 0.05).CONCLUSION: Group psychotherapy was an effective treatment on remission of improving freshman adjustment disorder(FAD), redounding to freshman mental health and self-assissing developing on the positive trend.