A study on the intervention of emotional disorders in adolescents by combining school physical education and psychological counseling

Abstract Background The incidence of adolescent emotional disorders is on the rise year by year and has become an important factor affecting their physical and mental health. The current single intervention model (such as simple psychological counseling or physical activities) has limited effectiveness and is difficult to achieve comprehensive intervention. As the main activity venue for teenagers, schools combine sports and psychological counseling to build an intervention system, which has unique advantages and practical necessity in improving emotional disorders among teenagers. Methods Sixty teenagers diagnosed with mild to moderate affective disorders in a middle school were selected as the research subjects and randomly divided into experimental group (n = 30) and control group (n = 30). The control group received conventional psychological counseling (once a week, 45 minutes each time), and the experimental group received a combined intervention of sports and psychological counseling (physical activities twice a week, 60 minutes each time; psychological counseling once a week, 45 minutes each time), with an intervention period of 12 weeks. The self-rating Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90), Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), and Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) were used to evaluate the intervention effect, and SPSS 26.0 was used for statistical analysis of data. Results The specific data of the SCL-90 total score, SAS score, and SDS score of the two groups are shown in Table 1 below. Before the intervention, there was no significant difference in the SCL-90 total score, SAS score, and SDS score between the two groups (p.05); after the intervention, each score of the two groups was significantly lower than before the intervention (p.05), and the SCL-90 total score of the experimental group (142.35 ± 15.62vs16 8.72 ± 18.34), SAS score (41.26 ± 5.31vs52.47 ± 6.18), and SDS score (40.83 ± 5.17vs51.92 ± 6.05) were significantly lower than those of the control group, and the differences were statistically significant (p.01). Discussion The intervention model combining school physical education and psychological counseling has a better effect on improving emotional disorders in adolescents than single psychological counseling. Sports activities can improve emotional states by regulating neurotransmitter secretion and releasing psychological stress. Psychological counseling can help adolescents establish correct cognition and master emotional management skills. The synergistic effect of the two can achieve dual intervention in physiology and psychology. This model is suitable for school education scenarios, easy to promote and implement, and provides a new effective path for intervening in adolescent emotional disorders. However, the research sample size is small, and long-term follow-up studies need to be conducted to expand the sample size.