Guided Narrative Technique After Coronavirus Outbreak Influencing Positive and Negative Emotions and Cognition for Children--A Randomized Controlled Trial

At the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 broke out in Wuhan, raging across the country quickly afterwards. As a sudden public health emergency, this epidemic caused some stress reactions (including emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactions) in children. These stress responses, in moderation, may be beneficial as a response to the challenge. However, excessive, and inappropriate stress responses may damage children's mental health, immune function, and daily function.

School-based CBT intervention is effective in alleviating children and adolescent anxiety. However, the effect last only shortly. Therefore, adding a new intervention component is necessary. Guided Narrative Technique (GNT) is an intervention focusing on narrative coherence and emotional expression. It has writing and drawing versions. The writing version was developed from Expressive Writing and has a significant effect on the improvement of various negative emotions and negative cognitions of traumatized individuals.

In this study, a randomized controlled experiment will be implemented. All participants will take a CBT course first. Then, they will be asked to write or draw about the epidemic or other life events using GNT. The study will explore the impact of CBT course combined with GNT on negative emotions and cognition of children after such a public crisis.