First-year university students at risk of social isolation, maladjustment, and disengagement (outcomes: sense of belonging and well-being)
Conditions
Interventions
Invitation to a LINE official account that delivers encouragement to visit the cafe. On each cafe open day (Mondays during term), a push message notes that the cafe is open that day, timed to coincide
subsequent messages convey low-threshold ways of using the cafe (who uses it, how, and when). The intervention runs across the five-wave follow-up (approximately 8 months, around June 2026 to January
Sponsors
Yokohama City University
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Inclusion criteria
Inclusion criteria: First-year undergraduate students enrolled at the Kanazawa-Hakkei campus of Yokohama City University who reported no prior use of the cafe (non-users) at baseline.
Exclusion criteria
Exclusion criteria: Students of the School of Medicine (based at a separate campus without practical access to the cafe). Students who reported prior cafe use at baseline (followed separately as a non-randomized reference cohort, not randomized).
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| Sense of belonging, measured with the Japanese 13-item Psychological Sense of School Membership scale (PSSM-13J). Assessed at all five waves (Wave 1 = baseline, then approximately every 2 months through Wave 5). Primary endpoint: the group-by-time (linear) interaction for PSSM-13J across Waves 2 to 5, estimated with a linear mixed-effects model (intention-to-treat). | — |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| 1) Subjective well-being (WHO-5 Well-Being Index), assessed at every wave (Waves 1 to 5). (2) Loneliness (three-item UCLA Loneliness Scale), assessed at Waves 1, 3, and 5. (3) Intention to withdraw from university (three author-created items), assessed at every wave (Waves 1 to 5). Process/mediator measure: self-reported number of cafe visits, recorded at each wave. | — |
Countries
Japan
Contacts
Public ContactKoji Hara
Yokohama City University School of Economics and Business Administration
Outcome results
None listed