Social anxiety intervention for college students: the effect of Dancesport exercise prescriptions combined with group psychological counseling.
7 affiliations
- 1School of Marxism, Huainan Normal University, Huainan, Anhui, China.
- 2School of Politics and Public Administration, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin, China.
- 3Department of Student Affairs, Jiaxing Vocational Technical College, Jiaxing, China.
- 4Chongqing College of International Business and Economics, College of Physical Education and Health, Chongqing, China.
- 5College of Marine Life Sciences, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China.
- 6Department of Orthopedics, The Second Affiliated Hospital and Yuying Children's Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China.
- 7School of Physical Education, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, Hebei, China.
Abstract
Objective
This randomized controlled trial (RCT) was designed to evaluate the relative efficacy of a structured dancesport exercise prescription, group psychological counseling, and their combined application in reducing social anxiety symptoms among Chinese university students.Methods
Forty-eight university students with elevated social anxiety were recruited from the Dancesport Club of Hefei Normal University and randomly allocated to four parallel groups (n = 12 per group): a Dancesport Exercise Prescription group (DP), a Group Psychological counseling group (GC), a Combined Intervention group (DP-GC), and a no-intervention control group. Social anxiety and related psychological symptoms were assessed before and after the 12-week intervention using the Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90), the Interaction Anxiousness Scale (IAS), the Social Avoidance and Distress Scale (SAD), and the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS). Group differences over time were examined using a 4 × 2 Group × Time repeated-measures framework, supplemented by adjusted post hoc comparisons, effect-size estimates, and 95% confidence intervals.Results
The three active intervention conditions showed greater pre-to-post reductions in social anxiety-related outcomes than the control condition. The combined DP-GC group showed the largest improvement across the measured outcomes. However, because the combined condition integrated two intervention components within the same scheduled sessions and the sample size was small, the observed advantage is interpreted cautiously as a potential additive benefit rather than definitive evidence of a true synergistic interaction.Conclusion
Dancesport exercise prescription and group psychological counseling may each reduce social anxiety symptoms among college students, with complementary scale-specific effects. The combined intervention model appears promising, but its superiority should be interpreted cautiously in light of the integrated intervention design, small sample size, and reliance on self-report outcomes.
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BibTeX
@article{yuan2026social,
title = {{Social anxiety intervention for college students: the effect of Dancesport exercise prescriptions combined with group psychological counseling.}},
author = {Mengmeng Yuan and Chen Jie and Dan Gong and Shunli Wu and Weikai Chen and Yuanning Li},
journal = {Frontiers in psychology},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1854500},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42924032},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Social anxiety intervention for college students: the effect of Dancesport exercise prescriptions combined with group psychological counseling.
AU - Mengmeng Yuan
AU - Chen Jie
AU - Dan Gong
AU - Shunli Wu
AU - Weikai Chen
AU - Yuanning Li
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/07
JO - Frontiers in psychology
DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1854500
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42924032
AB - Objective This randomized controlled trial (RCT) was designed to evaluate the relative efficacy of a structured dancesport exercise prescription, group psychological counseling, and their combined application in reducing social anxiety symptoms among Chinese university students.Methods Forty-eight university students with elevated social anxiety were recruited from the Dancesport Club of Hefei Normal University and randomly allocated to four parallel groups (n = 12 per group): a Dancesport Exercise Prescription group (DP), a Group Psychological counseling group (GC), a Combined Intervention group (DP-GC), and a no-intervention control group. Social anxiety and related psychological symptoms were assessed before and after the 12-week intervention using the Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90), the Interaction Anxiousness Scale (IAS), the Social Avoidance and Distress Scale (SAD), and the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS). Group differences over time were examined using a 4 × 2 Group × Time repeated-measures framework, supplemented by adjusted post hoc comparisons, effect-size estimates, and 95% confidence intervals.Results The three active intervention conditions showed greater pre-to-post reductions in social anxiety-related outcomes than the control condition. The combined DP-GC group showed the largest improvement across the measured outcomes. However, because the combined condition integrated two intervention components within the same scheduled sessions and the sample size was small, the observed advantage is interpreted cautiously as a potential additive benefit rather than definitive evidence of a true synergistic interaction.Conclusion Dancesport exercise prescription and group psychological counseling may each reduce social anxiety symptoms among college students, with complementary scale-specific effects. The combined intervention model appears promising, but its superiority should be interpreted cautiously in light of the integrated intervention design, small sample size, and reliance on self-report outcomes.
SN - 1664-1078
ER -