# NCT07731568: Efficacy and Underlying Mechanisms of Group Natural Psychotherapy for Anxiety Symptoms In Chinese University Students

Registry record: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT07731568 (retrieved 2026-09-30). Sponsor: Beijing HuiLongGuan Hospital.

## What you are forecasting

**Primary hypothesis (stated):** Online group Natural Psychotherapy (NPT) lowers GAD-7 anxiety more than online group CBT in Chinese university students.

**Resolution rule:** Supported if the report's primary analysis (group x time, or the between-group difference at 4 or 8 weeks) shows significantly greater GAD-7 reduction with NPT than with CBT. Equivalence or non-inferiority does not count as supported.

**Alpha:** 0.05, two-sided, unless the report states otherwise

**Effect metric for your 90% interval:** Between-group difference in GAD-7 change, 0-21 scale, at 4 weeks (positive = larger reduction with NPT).

**Moderator to consider:** Do students with higher baseline anxiety respond differently to NPT vs CBT?

## Design

- Allocation: RANDOMIZED; model: PARALLEL; purpose: TREATMENT
- Masking: SINGLE ['OUTCOMES_ASSESSOR']
- Enrollment: 55 (estimated)
- Phase: NA
- Status on registry: RECRUITING; start 2026-07-10; primary completion 2026-07-31 (estimated)

## Arms

- **Group Natural Psychotherapy** (experimental): NPT is a novel approach integrating Japanese Morita therapy and traditional Chinese culture. It proposes three core principles for treating anxiety.

* Week 1 Focuses on the first principle: endure the pain and do what you should do.
* Week 2: the second principle is accept the pain and avoid doing what you should not do.
* Week 3: the third principle is seek pain and do what you fear.
* Week 4 serves as a consolidation phase where participants synthesize their gains into a personalized coping plan for future relapse prevention.
- **Group Cognitive Behavioral Therapy** (active comparator): A 4-week structured online group CBT intervention will be delivered weekly (90 mins per session) via an online meeting app.

* Week 1 focuses on psychoeducation regarding anxiety mechanisms and establishing individual CBT loops (Situation-Thought-Emotion-Behavior).
* Week 2 introduces cognitive restructuring to help participants catch automatic thoughts, check cognitive distortions, and generate balanced thoughts.
* Week 3 targets behavioral modifications by helping participants recognize avoidance/safety behaviors and design manageable behavioral experiments ("mini-actions").
* Week 4 serves as a consolidation phase where participants synthesize their gains into a personalized coping plan for future relapse prevention.

Homework compliance (e.g., self-monitoring tables and behavioral logs) is required weekly.

## Primary outcome(s) as registered

- **Generalized Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD-7)** (Baseline, After 1 Week, After 4 weeks, After 8 weeks): The GAD-7 is a 7-item, self-reported Likert scale used to assess the severity of participants' anxiety symptoms over the past two weeks. Each item is scored from 0 (not at all) to 3 (nearly every day), yielding a total score ranging from 0 to 21, with higher scores indicating greater anxiety severity. The primary endpoint will evaluate the mean change in GAD-7 scores from baseline (Pre-intervention) to post-intervention (Week 4) to determine the efficacy of the intervention.

## Secondary outcomes (names only)

- Beck Depression Inventory（BDI） (Baseline, After 1 week, After 4 weeks, After 8 weeks)

## Population

Ages 18 Years to 30 Years; sex: ALL; healthy volunteers: False.

Inclusion Criteria:

* Voluntarily signed the informed consent form
* Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) total score≥4
* Chinese
* Aged 18-30 years, currently enrolled as an undergraduate or postgraduate student.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Severe depression or high risk of suicide
* History of substance abuse, drug dependence, or psychotic disorders
* Severe neurological diseases, severe somatic illnesses, or other conditions unsuitable for physical labor or physical activities
* History of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) within the past 6 months, or currently undergoing other pharmacological or systematic psychological treatments.

## Registry summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if Natural Psychotherapy(NPT) works to treat anxiety symptoms in university students. It will also learn about the efficacy of Natural Psychotherapy in comparison to CBT.

The main questions are: Does online group Natural Psychotherapy lower the participants' anxiety symptoms? Is there any difference between NPT and CBT? Researchers will compare online group Natural Psychotherapy to online group Cognitive Behavioral Therapy(CBT) to see if Natural Psychotherapy works better to lower anxiety symptoms.

Participants will:

Attend online groupNPT or group CBT once a week for 4 weeks; Complete online questionnaires before the intervention, after the first week, after four weeks and after eight weeks.