Dekker Izaak, De Jong Elisabeth M, Schippers Michaéla C, De Bruijn-Smolders Monique, Alexiou Andreas, Giesbers Bas
Department of Technology and Operations Management, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Research Centre Urban Talent, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Front Psychol. 2020 Jun 3;11:1063. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01063. eCollection 2020.
One in three university students experiences mental health problems during their study. A similar percentage leaves higher education without obtaining the degree for which they enrolled. Research suggests that both mental health problems and academic underperformance could be caused by students lacking control and purpose while they are adjusting to tertiary education. Currently, universities are not designed to cater to all the personal needs and mental health problems of large numbers of students at the start of their studies. Within the literature aimed at preventing mental health problems among students (e.g., anxiety or depression), digital forms of therapy recently have been suggested as potentially scalable solutions to address these problems. Integrative psychological artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of a chatbot, for example, shows great potential as an evidence-based solution. At the same time, within the literature aimed at improving academic performance, the online life-crafting intervention in which students write about values and passions, goals, and goal-attainment plans has shown to improve the academic performance and retention rates of students. Because the life-crafting intervention is delivered through the curriculum and doesn't bear the stigma that is associated with therapy, it can reach larger populations of students. But life-crafting lacks the means for follow-up or the interactiveness that online AI-guided therapy can offer. In this narrative review, we propose to integrate the current literature on chatbot interventions aimed at the mental health of students with research about a life-crafting intervention that uses an inclusive curriculum-wide approach. When a chatbot asks students to prioritize both academic as well as social and health-related goals and provides personalized follow-up coaching, this can prevent -often interrelated- academic and mental health problems. Right on-time delivery, and personalized follow-up questions enhance the effects of both -originally separated- intervention types. Research on this new combination of interventions should use design principles that increase user-friendliness and monitor the technology acceptance of its participants.
三分之一的大学生在学习期间会出现心理健康问题。同样比例的学生未获得所注册专业的学位就离开了高等教育阶段。研究表明，心理健康问题和学业成绩不佳可能都是由于学生在适应高等教育时缺乏掌控感和目标感所致。目前，大学在学生学习伊始并未设计好去满足大量学生的所有个人需求和心理健康问题。在旨在预防学生心理健康问题（如焦虑或抑郁）的文献中，数字形式的治疗方法最近被认为是解决这些问题的潜在可扩展方案。例如，聊天机器人形式的综合心理人工智能显示出作为基于证据的解决方案的巨大潜力。同时，在旨在提高学业成绩的文献中，学生撰写价值观、激情、目标和目标达成计划的在线生活规划干预已被证明可以提高学生的学业成绩和留校率。由于生活规划干预是通过课程进行的，且没有与治疗相关的污名化问题，所以它可以惠及更多学生。但生活规划缺乏跟进手段或在线人工智能引导治疗所能提供的互动性。在这篇叙述性综述中，我们建议将目前关于针对学生心理健康的聊天机器人干预的文献与关于采用包容性全课程方法的生活规划干预的研究结合起来。当聊天机器人要求学生对学业以及与社交和健康相关的目标进行优先级排序，并提供个性化的跟进指导时，这可以预防往往相互关联的学业和心理健康问题。及时交付以及个性化的跟进问题会增强这两种（原本相互分离的）干预类型的效果。对这种新的干预组合的研究应采用提高用户友好性的设计原则，并监测其参与者对该技术的接受程度。
