Neurofeedback Training to Address College Students’ Symptoms of Anxiety and Stress: A Quasi-Experimental Design

ABSTRACT

College students experience high levels of anxiety and stress, resulting in academic, interpersonal, and functional challenges. Despite awareness of anxiety and stress amongst students, universities and colleges fail to meet their mental health needs. Neurofeedback (NFB) training, a noninvasive approach designed to regulate brain processes to mitigate anxiety and stress-based symptoms, is an innovative option to help college students. A pre-posttest control group quasi-experimental design was implemented to measure whether a treatment group reported differences in anxiety and stress (as measured by the Beck Anxiety Inventory [BAI], Perceived Stress Scale [PSS], and Social Anxiety Thought [SAT] questionnaire) as compared to a waitlist control group. Results indicated significant decreases in SAT and PSS scores between groups, with no significant difference for BAI scores. Additionally, no significant differences were found over time between groups, regardless of gender. Limitations and future recommendations are explored.

KEYWORDS:

• Anxiety
• college students
• neurofeedback
• RM-MANOVA
• stress

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by research awards from Chi Sigma Iota (CSI), the Association for Assessment and Research in Counseling (AARC), and the Southern Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (SACES).