Papadatou-Pastou Marietta, Goozee Rhianna, Payne Erika, Barrable Alexia, Tzotzoli Patapia
School of Education, Research Centre for Psychophysiology and Education, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece.
Independent Scholar, London, UK.
Int J Ment Health Syst. 2017 Sep 25;11:59. doi: 10.1186/s13033-017-0165-z. eCollection 2017.
Recent evidence suggests that there is an increasing need for accessible and anonymous services to support higher education (HE) students suffering from psychological and/or academic difficulties. Such difficulties can lead to several negative outcomes, including poor academic performance, sub-optimal mental health, reduced study satisfaction, and dropout from study. Currently, universities in the UK lack financial resources and the on-campus mental health services traditionally offered to students are increasingly economically unsustainable. Compounded by the perceived stigma of using such services, mental health providers have been driven to address the escalating needs of students through online services.
In this paper, we review online support systems identified through a literature search and a manual search of references in the identified papers. Further systems were identified through web searches, and systems still in development were identified by consultation with researchers in the field. We accessed systems online to extract relevant information, regarding the main difficulties addressed by the systems, the psychological techniques used and any relevant research evidence to support their effectiveness.
A large number of web-based support systems have been developed to support mental health and wellbeing, although few specifically target HE students. Further research is necessary to establish the effectiveness of such interventions in providing a cost-effective alternative to face-to-face therapy, particularly in certain settings such as HE institutions.
近期证据表明，对于为遭受心理和/或学业困难的高等教育（HE）学生提供可及且匿名的服务的需求日益增加。此类困难可能导致多种负面结果，包括学业成绩不佳、心理健康欠佳、学习满意度降低以及辍学。目前，英国的大学缺乏财政资源，而且传统上向学生提供的校内心理健康服务在经济上越来越难以维持。再加上使用此类服务存在的污名化观念，心理健康服务提供者不得不通过在线服务来满足学生不断增长的需求。
在本文中，我们回顾了通过文献检索以及对已识别论文中的参考文献进行人工检索所确定的在线支持系统。通过网络搜索识别出了更多系统，并通过与该领域的研究人员协商确定了仍在开发中的系统。我们在线访问这些系统，以提取相关信息，包括系统所解决的主要困难、所使用的心理技术以及支持其有效性的任何相关研究证据。
已经开发了大量基于网络的支持系统来促进心理健康和幸福，尽管很少有专门针对高等教育学生的。有必要进行进一步研究，以确定此类干预措施在提供一种经济有效的面对面治疗替代方案方面的有效性，特别是在高等教育机构等特定环境中。
