Abstract

University students face a variety of mental health challenges, including increasingly high rates of anxiety. As demand for college counseling services among student populations rises, universities have an increasing need for effective and resource-efficient methods of intervention that support student mental health on their campuses. One area in need of research is that of using university classes themselves as a form of preventive intervention. If effective, this kind of preventive measure might be a particularly attractive method of reducing incidence of mental illness on campus and decreasing demand on university therapy resources. This study involves students at a private university in the Western United States who were enrolled in a psychoeducational university course based on the psychotherapeutic modality of acceptance and commitment therapy and that is aimed to improve student well-being and mental health. A causal-comparative design was used, with an intervention group composed of a sample of students who were enrolled in the course and a control group of students not enrolled. A split-plot analysis of variance was used to compare student scores for two short-form instruments of anxiety and perfectionism. Data were collected at three points over the course of the semester and at 1-month follow-up. Results suggest enrollment in the applied mental health course was associated with reduced anxiety symptoms, though enrollment did not appear to have a clear impact on student perfectionism. These findings suggest that university counseling centers might be able to effectively reduce demand for their therapy resources and improve mental health on campus by integrating similar courses into their interventions. Additional research is needed to improve the generalizability and further test the validity of these results.

Degree

PhD

College and Department

David O. McKay School of Education; Counseling Psychology and Special Education

Rights

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