Investigating the Use of Electronic Well-being Diaries Completed Within a Psychoeducation Program for University Students: Longitudinal Text Analysis Study

Digital Mental Health Interventions for Young People Aged 16-25 Years: Scoping Review

BACKGROUND

Digital mental health interventions for young people offer a promising avenue for promoting mental well-being and addressing mental health issues in this population.

OBJECTIVE

This scoping review aims to explore the range of digital mental health interventions available for young people aged 16-25 years, with a particular focus on digital tool types, modalities, delivery formats, target populations, and study retention rates.

METHODS

The scoping review was conducted in 6 databases (PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, and PsychInfo). Studies were included if they were published from 2019 to 2024 in English, reported on a population of young people aged 16-25 years, and included validated mental health or well-being outcome measures. All types of digital interventions from promotion and prevention to treatment of mental health were included.

RESULTS

After screening 13,306 articles, 145 articles were included in the final review. The findings reveal a diverse landscape of studies, equally focusing on the prevention and promotion of mental health and the treatment of mental ill health, most commonly using cognitive behavioral therapy (63/145, 43.4%). The most common digital tools were apps (51/135, 37.8%), web-based resources (45/135, 33.3%), and websites (19/135, 14.1%). The results highlight the over emphasis on convenience sampling (140/145, 96.6%), with participants mainly recruited from universities or colleges, and a lack of representation from marginalized groups, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer youth; those from socioeconomically deprived backgrounds; and those who are neurodivergent. Moreover, the focus on anxiety and depression leaves other mental health conditions underrepresented. Retention rates ranged from 16% to 100% and averaged 66% across all studies.

CONCLUSIONS

There is a need for more research on mental health promotion and prevention measures among those aged younger than 25 years as young people are at increased risk of mental health issues. This includes exploring different intervention approaches and modalities beyond cognitive behavioral therapy and ensuring inclusivity in study populations. Standardizing intervention durations and incorporating long-term follow-up data could provide valuable insights into the efficacy and effectiveness of digital interventions. Future studies should aim for greater inclusivity, ensuring representation from marginalized groups to address the diverse mental health needs of young people effectively. By adopting these approaches, digital mental health interventions can become more accessible, engaging, and impactful for young people worldwide.

Evaluation of a credit-bearing online administered happiness course on undergraduates' mental well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic

Psychoeducational courses focused on positive psychology interventions have been shown to benefit student well-being. However, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying social restrictions, many educators have had to deliver their courses online. Given that online teaching presents a very different university experience for students, do psychoeducational courses provide similar well-being benefits in an online format? In this pre-registered study (https://osf.io/3f89m), we demonstrate that despite the challenges of remote learning, first year university students (N = 166) taking an online "Science of Happiness" course during the first term experienced positive benefits to mental well-being in comparison to a wait-list control group (N = 198) registered to take the course in the second term. Specifically, university students currently taking the course maintained their mental well-being over the semester relative to the wait-list control who showed a significant decline in well-being and increase in anxiety during the same period. Our findings suggest that the online-administered "Science of Happiness" course delivered during the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with a protective effect on mental well-being. We also observed that engagement with the course was high, though there was no evidence that this factor mediated the positive effects we observed. However, we did find evidence that prior interest in increasing well-being influenced the effects of the course; participants with lower well-being interest showed less of a benefit. Our results suggest that online psychoeducational courses might provide a relatively cheap, flexible, and efficient means of providing support as part of an integrated approach to student mental well-being.