THE EFFECT OF META-DIAGNOSTIC THERAPY ON ANXIETY AND SELF-CARE BEHAVIOR OF CYBERBULLIED NURSING STUDENTS

Cyber harassment is facilitated and therefore is increased by the ease of online content production, the possibility of sending messages anonymously, rapid and widespread dissemination, and the absence of pressures related to face-to-face communication. This new form of abuse deserves more attention of researchers, because it may cause numerous harms to students and young people. The present study aimed to determine the effect of trans-diagnostic treatment on anxiety and self-care behavior of cyberbullied nursing students.

In this randomized clinical trial, 30 nursing students of Urmia University of Medical Sciences were selected by convenience sampling and randomly divided to two experimental and control groups (15 people in each group). Both groups completed Beck's anxiety scale and researcher-made self-care behavior questionnaire in the pre-test and post-test. The students of the experimental group underwent diagnostic metacognitive intervention for 4 months (from February 1400 to May 1401) in 12 sessions each for 1 hour. The comparison between the two groups was investigated using the analysis of covariance test.

The results showed that meta-diagnostic treatment has a significant effect on decreasing anxiety and increasing self-care behavior of cyberbullied nursing students; the intensity of the impact is very high (p˂0.05).

Meta-diagnostic therapy can be used as an effective method to reduce anxiety and increase the self-care behavior of cyberbullied nursing students, and it can be used to develop programs to increase the level of self-care and treat anxiety in medical, especially nursing students.