JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The high academic demands experienced by students will often have an impact on the quality of students’ mental and physical health. The most common health problems are reported as gastrointestinal disorders. This condition tends to manifest in the emergence of generalized anxiety disorder and reduces the quality of life and productivity. The population that suffers the most from this disorder is female adolescents, and this condition occurs in both South African and Indonesian populations. The use of drugs, especially benzodiazepines, often causes side effects of psychological conditions. For this reason, it is necessary to have a solution in the form of a targeted and efficient approach to reduce psychological symptoms that arise from functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs) in the form of anxiety.

Objective:

The purpose of this study is to produce and implement a counseling intervention model to assist female students with Generalized Anxiety Disorders (GAD) caused by FGID factors, using an approach combining CBT, online counseling, and local wisdom in Indonesian and South African populations.

Methods:

The research subjects will comprise 118 female adolescent students from Indonesia and 118 female adolescent students from South Africa making a total sample of 236 participants, and the study will use a prospective, parallel randomized controlled trial design. The recruitment process will begin in July 2023, and the trial will begin in August 2023. The post-test assessment data gathering will take place by November 2023. Questionnaires that will be used in this study include the Functional Gastrointestinal (FGI) Disorder–Checklist (FGI-Checklist) to collect data related to FGIDs, and the generalized anxiety disorder 7-item (GAD-7) to measure the anxiety conditions experienced by respondents.

Results:

By adopting intention-to-treat principle, there will be significant mean changes in GAD scores and FGID scores after exposure to this combined approach in the Indonesian and South African populations. Implementing this comprehensive intervention will improve the students’ psychological symptoms related to FGIDs and ultimately enhance their overall well-being.

Conclusions:

This study will aim to develop and implement a model of counseling intervention for female students with Generalized Anxiety Disorders (GAD) obtained from FGIDs using a combination approach to CBT, online counseling, and local wisdom in both the Indonesian and South African populations. The trial findings will contribute to our understanding of the effects of CBT combined with local wisdom and online counseling approaches which mental health counselors may use to treat GAD-affected adolescent girls who have FGIDs. Clinical Trial: This research protocol has been prospectively registered in UMIN Clinical Trial Registry [UMIN000051386] on 20 June 2023.[https://center6.umin.ac.jp/cgi-open-bin/ctr_e/ctr_view.cgi?recptno=R000058622]