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Social anxiety intervention for college students: the effect of Dancesport exercise prescriptions combined with group psychological counseling

Year: 2026

Type: article

Study designs: Randomized Controlled Trial, Clinical Trial

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.

Source: Frontiers in Psychology

DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1854500

Authors: Mengmeng Yuan, Chen Jie, Dan Gong, Shunli Wu, Weikai Chen, Yuanning Li