Improving College Students' Mental Help-Seeking Intention During the COVID-19 Pandemic (MHI)

Cleveland State University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Help-Seeking Behavior; Mental Health Issue

Treatments: Behavioral: Mental help-seeking self-persuasion

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05451706

ClevelandSU

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study aimed at testing the effectiveness of a longitudinal intervention in increasing college students' intention to seek mental help during the pandemic.

Full description

This study aimed at testing the effectiveness of a longitudinal intervention in increasing college students' intention to seek mental help during the pandemic.

A four-armed randomized controlled experiment was conducted to compare two self-persuasion methods against two control conditions. Assessments took place at baseline (T0), post-first treatment (T1), post-second treatment (six weeks, T2), and ten-week follow-up (T3).

The results showed that the intervention significantly increased students' help-seeking intention, attitude, and efficacy at different time points. It also reduced mental help-seeking-related stigma after the first task.

Enrollment: 926 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 100 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• 18 years old or older
• Full-time undergraduate students
• Had more than a moderate amount of mental distress

Exclusion criteria

• Under 18 years old
• Not full-time undergraduate students
• Had less than a moderate amount of mental distress

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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926 participants in 4 patient groups, including a placebo group

YouTube Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Participants assigned to this task were asked to search YouTube for a 5-10 minutes' video promoting mental help-seeking among college students. Then, they were expected to provide the link to the video and describe the content of the video. Next, participants were guided to form rebuttals disapproving three statements that rationalize students' low intention to seek mental help.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Mental help-seeking self-persuasion

Facebook Intervention

Active Comparator group

Description:

This task was to draft a Facebook message for the participants' fellow students. In their message, participants were expected to list three reasons for seeking mental help. The length of the message was not pre-determined.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Mental help-seeking self-persuasion

YouTube Control Group

Placebo Comparator group

Description:

Participants in this group were assigned a YouTube task advocating social distancing during a pandemic. The question prompts were modified from the tasks for the experimental groups.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Mental help-seeking self-persuasion

Facebook Control Group

Placebo Comparator group

Description:

Participants in this group were assigned a Facebook task advocating social distancing during a pandemic. The question prompts were modified from the tasks for the experimental groups.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Mental help-seeking self-persuasion