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

NCT05451706 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: ClevelandSU
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 926
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

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

Conditions

Help-Seeking Behavior; Mental Health Issue

Keywords

Mental help-seeking; COVID-19; College students; Self-persuasion

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (2)

• Help-Seeking Intention

  Help-Seeking Intention was measured by one item created based on recommendations by Ajzen (2002). Measured on a 5-point scale (1 = extremely unlikely, 5 = extremely likely), this item asked, "If you have a personal-emotional problem, how likely is it that you would seek help from a mental health professional (a psychologist, psychologist, or psychotherapist)?" Higher scores on this item suggest higher intentions to seek professional mental help.

  10 weeks

• Help-Seeking Behavior

  Help-Seeking Behavior was measured by a validated item modified from previous research based on the transtheoretical model (Sarkin et al., 2001). The item asked about if a participant has sought mental help from a health care professional. Answers to this item included "1 = not intending to seek help in the next six months," "2 = intending to seek help in the next six months," "3 = planning to seek help in the next 30 days," "4 = have already sought help but for less than six months," and "5 = have been under treatment for more than six months."

  10 weeks

Secondary Outcomes (3)

• Mental help-seeking attitudes

  10 weeks

• Self-stigma of seeking mental help

  10/2020 - 1/10 weeks

• Mental help-seeking efficacy

  10 weeks

Study Arms (4)

YouTube Intervention

EXPERIMENTAL

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.

Behavioral: Mental help-seeking self-persuasion

Facebook Intervention

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

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.

Behavioral: Mental help-seeking self-persuasion

YouTube Control Group

PLACEBO COMPARATOR

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.

Behavioral: Mental help-seeking self-persuasion

Facebook Control Group

PLACEBO COMPARATOR

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.

Behavioral: Mental help-seeking self-persuasion

Interventions

Mental help-seeking self-persuasion BEHAVIORAL

Employing a longitudinal design, this study used a self-persuasion framework in a 4-arm intervention to increase college students' help-seeking intentions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Facebook Control Group; Facebook Intervention; YouTube Control Group; YouTube Intervention

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years - 100 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

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

You may not qualify if:

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

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Cleveland State University: lead

Study Sites (1)

Texas A&M University

College Station, Texas, 77843, United States

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Help-Seeking Behavior; COVID-19

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Social Behavior; Behavior; Pneumonia, Viral; Pneumonia; Respiratory Tract Infections; Infections; Virus Diseases; Coronavirus Infections; Coronaviridae Infections; Nidovirales Infections; RNA Virus Infections; Lung Diseases; Respiratory Tract Diseases

Study Officials

• Qiwei Wu

  Cleveland State University

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: PARTICIPANT
• Purpose: HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Assistant Professor

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: July 6, 2022
• First Posted: July 11, 2022
• Study Start: October 1, 2020
• Primary Completion: January 30, 2021
• Study Completion: January 31, 2021
• Last Updated: February 6, 2024

Record last verified: 2024-02

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

US (1)