Counselling Adolescents with Somatic Symptom Disorder in Ghana: The Role of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Therapy

The study aimed at exploring the usefulness of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Therapy (MBSRT) in handling adolescents with significant focus on physical symptoms in the Nanumba North Municipality of the Northern Region of Ghana. The study was guided by three research questions and hypotheses each, to help the researcher. They were all tested at a 0.05 level of significance. The pre-test, post-test, control group and experimental design was used for the study. Three thousand, five hundred and sixty-one (3,561) students, which included all students in junior high school Two (JHS 2) from the twenty public junior high schools in the Nanumba north municipality of the northern region made up the population for the study. Thirty-three (33) students (made up of fourteen (14) males and nineteen (19) females reporting somatic symptom disorder) were selected as the sample size for the study. They were selected from two schools, making use of the multi-stage random sampling method. The researcher adopted “Adolescents Somatic Symptom Scale” (ASSS) and modified it for use. The Cronbach Alpha reliability method `was used to determine the consistency of the reliability which made use of the test items. The reliability of the coefficient obtained was 0.70. The instrument was run on the students first, and thirty-three (33) students who showed significant focus on physical symptoms in the two schools were assigned for treatment to experimental group A (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Therapy), and B (Control Group) randomly. The data collected were scrutinized by the use of descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation, and inferential statistics of paired t-test sample, One Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Two-Way Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). The findings of the study elicited the fact that there is a significant dissimilarity in the pre-test and post-test of somatic symptoms disorder scores of adolescent students exposed to MBSRT. Also, there was no significant communication outcome on treatment by socioeconomic level. Judging from the findings of the study, it is recommended that counsellors should introduce, encourage and promote Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Therapy (MBSRT) in all junior high schools as an effective counselling treatment for adolescents.