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COVID-19

COVID-19 Pandemic Exacerbates Psychological Stress Among Young People

Strategic Insights

— 1 min read

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated psychological stress among young people, with some survivors experiencing persistent mental distress, creating an urgent need for accessible psychological intervention tools. Researchers from Nankai University have developed an online self-help psychological intervention chatbot to supplement existing mental health resources. The chatbot utilizes prompt engineering techniques and is proficient in Problem-Solving Therapy (PST) based on the large language model GPT-4.

Key Takeaways:

  • The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated psychological stress among young people, with some survivors experiencing persistent mental distress.
  • The study developed an online self-help psychological intervention chatbot to supplement existing mental health resources.
  • The chatbot utilized prompt engineering techniques and is proficient in Problem-Solving Therapy (PST) based on the large language model GPT-4.
  • The pre-test results indicated that the chatbot followed the core steps of PST during interactions with users and was helpful in problem-solving.
  • The formal experiment showed that the experimental group scored significantly higher than the control group in the dimensions of problem awareness and problem-solving.
  • No significant differences were found in the evaluation based on gender or the presence of post-COVID-19 symptoms.
  • The chatbot has shown a certain degree of universal applicability.
  • The research concluded that the PST chatbot has great potential in the field of mental health, highlighting the value of large language models in promoting self-help mental health interventions as a supplementary tool to existing resources.

Statistics:

  • 7 master's students majoring in psychological counseling were recruited for a pre-test of the chatbot.
  • 100 young people who had contracted COVID-19 were selected for a formal user experiment to evaluate the chatbot's effectiveness.
  • The experimental group scored significantly higher than the control group in the dimensions of problem awareness ((88.31) = 3.14, = 0.002) and problem-solving ((98) = 3.34, = 0.001).
  • No significant differences were found in the evaluation based on gender ((91.23) = 1.07, = 0.286) or the presence of post-COVID-19 symptoms.

Sources:

  • Self-help psychological intervention for young individuals during the post-COVID-19 era: development of a PST chatbot using GPT-4. Frontiers in Digital Health, 2025;7:1627268.
  • Research cited in NewsRx. Researchers from Nankai University Describe Findings in COVID-19 (Self-help psychological intervention for young individuals during the post-COVID-19 era: development of a PST chatbot using GPT-4). Mental Health Weekly Digest. October 20, 2025; p 210.

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