Oliveira Carla, Pereira Anabela, Vagos Paula, Nóbrega Catarina, Gonçalves José, Afonso Beatriz
Department of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal.
Department of Psychology and Education, Portucalense Institute for Human Development (INPP), Universidade Portucalense, Porto, Portugal.
Front Psychol. 2021 May 11;12:647606. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.647606. eCollection 2021.
Serious mental health disorders are increasing among college students and university counseling services are often overburdened. Mobile applications for mental health have been growing exponentially in the last decade and they are emerging in university settings as a promising tool to promote and intervene in college students' mental health. Additionally, considering the recent covid-19 pandemic, mHealth interventions, due to its nature and possibilities, may play an important role in these institutions. Our main objectives are to explore mhealth interventions in universities, regarding its conceptual framework, acceptability and efficacy outcomes and understand its impact and contributions to address treatment delivery and psychological difficulties resulting from covid-19 pandemic. The literature search was conducted in scientific databases, namely, Web of Science, Pubmed, and Scopus. A search in app stores was not conducted, thus regarding commercially available apps, only those found in our database search were included in our review. We selected studies with mobile applications addressing psychological interventions for college students. A total of 2,158 participants were included in the 8 selected studies and most interventions were delivered through mobile apps only and based in cognitive behavioral therapy. Results suggested that college students accept and adhere to these interventions and preliminary evidence of efficacy was demonstrated in different disorders, such as stress, anxiety, depression and risky behaviors such as alcohol and tobacco abuse and sexual knowledge. We conclude that universities, particularly college counseling services, may benefit from mhealth interventions, not only to address college students' mental health but to decrease some of its difficulties related to lack of human resources. Specifically in covid-19 pandemic context, these interventions may contribute significantly by promoting and delivering psychological interventions at a safe distance.
严重的心理健康障碍在大学生中日益增多，大学咨询服务常常不堪重负。在过去十年里，心理健康方面的移动应用呈指数级增长，并且在大学环境中作为促进和干预大学生心理健康的一种有前景的工具正在兴起。此外，考虑到最近的新冠疫情，移动健康干预因其性质和可能性，可能在这些机构中发挥重要作用。我们的主要目标是探索大学中的移动健康干预，涉及其概念框架、可接受性和疗效结果，并了解其对解决因新冠疫情导致的治疗提供和心理困难的影响及贡献。文献检索在科学数据库中进行，即科学网、PubMed和Scopus。未在应用商店进行搜索，因此对于商业可用应用，只有在我们数据库搜索中找到的那些被纳入我们的综述。我们选择了针对大学生心理干预的移动应用研究。8项选定研究共纳入2158名参与者，大多数干预仅通过移动应用进行，且基于认知行为疗法。结果表明大学生接受并坚持这些干预，并且在不同疾病中显示出了初步疗效证据，如压力、焦虑、抑郁以及诸如酗酒、吸烟和性知识等危险行为。我们得出结论，大学，尤其是大学咨询服务机构，可能会从移动健康干预中受益，不仅能解决大学生的心理健康问题，还能减少一些因人力资源不足导致的困难。特别是在新冠疫情背景下，这些干预可能通过在安全距离促进和提供心理干预做出重大贡献。
