Self-Care Program as a Tool for Alleviating Anxiety and Loneliness and Promoting Satisfaction With Life in High School Students and Staff: Randomized Survey Study.

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 global pandemic has led to a marked increase in anxiety levels, significantly affecting the well-being of individuals worldwide. In response to this growing concern, interventions aimed at enhancing social-emotional skills and promoting mental health are more crucial than ever.

Objective: This global study aimed to examine the effectiveness of a self-care program on anxiety, loneliness, and satisfaction with life in high school students and staff in a randomized, waitlist control trial with baseline and postintervention assessments.

Methods: The 4-week web-based self-care program, offered by the Heartfulness Institute, is designed to develop social-emotional skills through stress management and self-observation. The web-based program was a positive intervention that offered support to the students and staff to build specific skills, such as reflection, observation, positivity, time management, and goal setting. In this study, the sample consisted of a total of 203 high school students and staff randomized into a control waitlisted group (students: n=57 and staff: n=45) and a Heartfulness group (students: n=57 and staff: n=44) from 3 schools. Both the groups completed web-based surveys at weeks 0, 4, and 8, assessing their anxiety, loneliness, and satisfaction with life scores using Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 Scale (GAD-7 and Severity Measure for Generalized Anxiety Disorder-Child Age 11-17), Satisfaction With Life scale (SWLS) and Satisfaction With Life Scale-Child (SWLS-C), and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness Scale. Survey responses were each individually analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA.

Results: The study received institutional review board approval on February 3, 2022. Participant recruitment lasted from the approval date until March 30, 2022. The 4-week program for the Heartfulness group started on April 4, 2024. There was a significant 3-way interaction among time, group, and school showing a decrease in anxiety and loneliness scores and an increase in satisfaction-with-life scores (P<.05). In students in the Heartfulness group, there was strong evidence to suggest a significant mean difference in GAD-7, SWLS, and UCLA scores between week 0 and week 4 at all schools (P<.001). In staff in the Heartfulness group, there was strong evidence to suggest a significant mean difference in GAD-7, SWLS, and UCLA scores between week 0 and week 4 at all schools (P<.001).

Conclusions: The pandemic brought severe educational and social changes that triggered a decline in mental health in schools. This study showed the effectiveness of noninvasive self-care tools used digitally to significantly decrease anxiety and loneliness scores and increase satisfaction of life scores in the participants.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05874232; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05874232.