The effect of school-based group counseling on Chinese mainland adolescents’ mental health and academic functioning: A meta-analysis of controlled studies.

A growing number of studies have examined the effects of group counseling on students' mental health or academic functioning in China; no meta-analysis of these studies has yet been conducted, which may limit school-based applicability or the development of service systems. This study sought to establish an overall effect size for group counseling interventions, as well as identify potential moderator variable effects on their efficacy for Chinese mainland adolescents in particular. A total of 611 studies, comprising 15,320 adolescent participants altogether, were included, with meta-analyses conducted for six mental health outcomes and five academic functioning outcomes. The results showed that, at posttest, group counseling had statistically significant medium to large effects on depression symptoms (standardized mean difference [SMD] = -0.835), anxiety symptoms (SMD = -0.722), loneliness (SMD = -0.791), sleep problems (SMD = -1.075), self-harm (SMD = -1.463), suicidal ideation (SMD = -1.055), learning motivation (SMD = 0.952), learning engagement (SMD = 1.478), academic self-efficacy (SMD = 1.264), academic procrastination (SMD = -1.528), and learning burnout (SMD = -1.591). The moderator results suggest that group counseling might work best as a small-scale intervention and that online intervention resulted in improvements comparable to face-to-face intervention. This study demonstrates that school-based group counseling effectively enhances both the mental health and academic functioning of Chinese adolescents. Our finding highlights the importance of such interventions in addressing psychological and educational challenges in schools, providing evidence for educators and policymakers to strengthen these support systems. Future research should explore how intervention components interact to optimize their impact in school settings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).