Effect of cognitive therapy training in groups on health anxiety among nursing students

Introduction: Health anxiety is one of the most common anxiety disorders among medical students which can affect their activities in professional and educational fields. Therefore, the main objective of the present research is to study the effects of cognitive therapy training in groups on health anxiety among nursing students. Materials and Methods: This is a quasi-experimental study conducted on 30 nursing students with health anxiety score more than average. The students were randomly divided into two groups of experimental and control. After the short form health anxiety questionnaire was filled in by participants, cognitive therapy was taught to the experimental group in twelve ninety- minute sessions. Then both experimental and control groups filled in the health anxiety questionnaire again. Data were analyzed using co-variance test (Ancova). Results: The findings of this research showed that cognitive therapy training in groups in the significance level of P0.05 reduced the rate of health anxiety among nursing students (P0.017). Conclusion: The cognitive therapy training in groups has an important role in reducing health anxiety rate among nursing students. So the results of this research can be used in designing interventions such as deployment of educational programs for medical students.