78. Intervention of ethnic community theme education on depressive symptoms among ethnic minority adolescents

Abstract Background As society pays more attention to the problem of depression, analyzing the depressive symptoms of ethnic minority adolescents has become a new research direction. National Community Theme Education (NCTE) emphasizes the unity, struggle, common prosperity and development of all ethnic groups, which helps students enhance their sense of identity and belonging to the overall history of the nation. However, existing research on the intervention effect of NCTE on depression in ethnic minority adolescents is relatively limited. Therefore, the study mainly used NCTE as the main method to analyze the intervention effect of NCTE on depression symptoms in ethnic minority adolescents. Methods The study selected 200 ethnic minority adolescents from a certain minority region who voluntarily participated as research subjects, aged 12-18 years old. Randomly divide these participants into an experimental group and a control group, with 100 people in each group. The experimental group received NCTE courses, while the control group did not receive any intervention. The experimental group received a 12-week NCTE course, once a week for 2 hours each time. The course content included introductions to ethnic culture, ethnic unity activities, psychological counseling, etc. This course is hosted by professionally trained educators from the ethnic group. Prior to intervention, baseline assessment of depressive symptoms was performed on all study subjects using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). After the intervention, CES-D was used again to assess depression symptoms in all study subjects. SPSS 26.0 software was used for statistical analysis of pre-test and post test data. Results Before intervention, the mean CES-D scores of the control group and experimental group were 21.8 and 21.5 respectively, and the standard deviations of the two groups were 5.2 and 5.3 respectively. There was no significant difference between the two groups (p>.05). After the intervention, the mean CES-D score of the control group was 21.3, with a standard deviation of 5.1. Compared with before the intervention, there was little change (p>.05), while the average CES-D score of the experimental group was significantly reduced to 14.2, with a standard deviation of 4.7 (p<.05). The CES-D score of the experimental group was significantly reduced after the intervention, which verified the importance of enhancing national identity and belonging in improving mental health. In contrast, CES-D scores in the control group did not change significantly, further supporting the specificity of the intervention effect. Discussion The research results show that NCTE has a significant intervention effect on the depressive symptoms of ethnic minority adolescents. This provides new perspectives and methods for mental health intervention among ethnic minority adolescents. NCTE can effectively improve the mental health status of minority adolescents and reduce depressive symptoms, providing a practical intervention strategy for mental health education in schools and communities. Future research can further analyze the intervention effects of NCTE among different age groups and different ethnic minority groups. In addition, physiological and psychological indicators can be combined to enable a more comprehensive assessment of intervention effects.