G8 Evaluation of an online workshop for young people with anxiety and physical symptoms. (12th September 2022) - Harlow, Emma
Abstract : Introduction: The Paediatric Gastroenterology and Chronic Pain services at the Evelina London Children's Hospital set up a virtual anxiety management workshop for young people aged 11–17, with Physical Symptoms, and their parents. Based on Cognitive-Behavioural therapy (CBT), this workshop provided psychoeducation and strategies to manage general and health specific anxieties. Three online workshops took place between October 2020, and September 2021. Aim: To evaluate participants' outcomes of and feedback from the Managing Anxiety and Physical Symptoms workshop. Participants and Methods: Twenty-two participants attended the three groups, 12 of which were young people, who were open to the Gastroenterology Service, and their parents. All participants were invited to complete brief pre and post questionnaires, where they were asked three questions exploring their understanding of anxiety, knowledge of anxiety management strategies and confidence in using these strategies. The questionnaires included a combination of 5-point Likert scale responses (1 = no confidence/knowledge, 5 = extremely confident/Knowledgeable). The quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics (Mean; M, and Standard Deviation; SD), and free text qualitative date was collated and reviewed. Results: After the workshop, the young people indicated a self-reported improvement in their understanding of their anxiety (M= 2.33 to 3.9), their knowledge of strategies to manage anxiety (M=2.5 to 3.9) and their confidence in using strategies to manage their anxiety (M=2.33 to 3.71). The parents also reported a similar improvement across all these areas. In their feedback forms, the majority of the participants found the workshop helpful (94%) and indicated that learning about the strategies to help support them to manage anxiety as one of most helpful parts of the workshop. Summary and Conclusion: Overall, participants appeared to benefit from the workshops in terms of their knowledge of and confident in implementing different strategies to manage anxiety, with both young people and parents rating themselves higher on these aspects following the workshop. This was also reflected in the evaluation feedback data. Future work could look at the impact of the group on their presentation of physical symptoms and the sustainability of their new knowledge/skills. In conclusion, this supports the continuation of psychologically led workshops with adaptions to be implemented from participants' feedback.