Providing support for student mental health needs continues to be a top priority of colleges and universities. While acute needs, such as severe depression and suicidality, have decreased somewhat in recent years, rates of anxiety (33%), depression (37%), and disordered eating (28%) remain high among college studentsopens in new window.
Campus counseling centers are using a variety of interventions to support students, including offering telehealth services, group therapy, peer support, skill-building workshops, and more. As technological capabilities continue to grow, digital tools offer unique scalable opportunities to proactively screen students for mental health concerns and offer tailored interventions.
A newly published randomized controlled trial was conducted across 26 colleges and universities to evaluate the effectiveness of a digitally delivered, cognitive behavioral therapyopens in new window (CBT) guided self-help intervention. Authors were interested in exploring whether the digital CBT intervention could prevent mental health concerns, as well as treat existing concerns. Student participants (n=6,205) were randomly assigned to complete a mental health screening and digital CBT or a mental health screening followed by a referral to college-provided care.
The digital CBT platform contained evidence-based guided programs for anxiety, depression, and eating disorders. Each program had 6–8 modules that were 20 minutes each. Participants could take more than one program if they had co-occurring concerns, and they had access to the program for 6 months. Additional modules also were available on challenging times, grief, relaxation, sleep difficulties, anger management, communication/relationships, and self-esteem.
Participants completed symptom questionnaires to screen for generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, eating disorder, and depression. In the digital CBT group, there was a significant reduction in the percentage of participants meeting criteria for mental health concerns at 6 weeks, 6 months, and 2 years compared with the control group. Additionally, students were more likely to begin the digital CBT program (74%) compared with following through on a campus referral (30%) at the 6-month follow-up.
This research suggests that digitally delivered, self-guided CBT interventions can be an effective and scalable intervention for many common mental health concerns. The authors note that future research would benefit from exploring how to personalize care further, perhaps through leveraging machine learning to determine who might experience benefit from digital support and who may benefit from more intensive interventions.
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