Background: High anxiety levels have been found at increasing numbers after the COVID-19 global pandemic, negatively impacting the lives of many. The 4-week virtual Self-Care program, offered by the Heartfulness Institute, is designed to develop social-emotional skills through stress management and self-observation.Objective: This global study examined the effectiveness of the program on anxiety, loneliness, and satisfaction with life in high school students and staff in a randomized, wait-list control trial with baseline and post-intervention assessments.
Methods:The virtual 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 three schools. Both the groups completed online surveys at weeks 0, 4 and 8, assessing their anxiety, loneliness, and satisfaction with life scores using Generalized Anxiety disorder scale (GAD-7 and Severity Measure for Generalized Anxiety Disorder-Child Age 11-17), Satisfaction with life scale (SWLS and SWLS-C), and the UCLA Loneliness Scale. Survey responses were each individually analyzed via a 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 three-way interaction between Time, Group, and School showing a decrease in anxiety and loneliness scores and increase in the satisfaction with life scores (p<.05). In students in the Heartfulness group, there was strong evidence to suggest a significant mean difference in GAD, SWLS and UCLA between Week 0 and Week 4 at all schools (p<.0001). In staff in the Heartfulness group, there was strong evidence to suggest a significant mean difference in GAD, SWLS and UCLA between Week 0 and Week 4 at all schools (p<.0001).
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 virtually to significantly decreased anxiety and loneliness scores and increased satisfaction of life scores in the participants. Clinical Trial: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05874232; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05874232