Psychological Distress, Psychological Intervention, University Students
Conditions
Keywords
university students, university counselling service, mental health, academic motivation
Brief summary
The goal of this clinical trial is to evaluate mental health and academic motivation in university students asking help to university counselling service (UCS) in Southern Italy before anf after four weekly psychological sessions. The main question it aims to answer are: * is the psychological counselling intervention useful in improving psychological distress and academic motivation * which psychological variables predict the intervention outcome
Detailed description
The participants will be university students who completed psychological counselling intervention delivered by UCS (University of Campania, Italy). They will be asked to completed an internet-based survey, administered anonymously through Google Forms. The survey consist of two sections. The first section includes questions about sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., gender and age), enrollment year, type of university course attended, academic standing (i.e., whether all exams within the prescribed period had been passed), and previous or current contact with psychological or psychiatric mental health services (university or non-university). The second section comprises four scales that assessed the variables of interest. To measure psychological distress and problems, the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation-Outcome Measure (CORE-OM) will be used. Feelings of loneliness will be assessed using the University of California-Los Angeles Loneliness Scale version 3 (UCLA-LS3). Emotion regulation will be assessed using the Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). Students intentions to continue or to drop out of the academic course will be measured with self-reported questions.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALfour weekly psychological counselling intervention
four weekly psychological counselling intervention delivered by university students asking help to university counselling service in Southern Italy
Sponsors
University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli
Study design
Allocation
NA
Intervention model
SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose
OTHER
Masking
NONE
Intervention model description
Four weekly psychological counselling intervention
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to 30 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* being university students who asked psychological help to university counselling service and completed the intervention
Exclusion criteria
* do not speak Italian
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| psychological distress | before and after the treatment, up to 7 weeks | To measure psychological distress and problems, the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation-Outcome Measure (CORE-OM) (Barkham et al., 1998; Evans et al., 2000). The CORE-OM is a 34-item self-report measure that evaluates the level of psychological distress will be used. The measure covers four domains: subjective well-being (4 items), problems/symptoms (depression: 4 items, anxiety: 4 items, physical problems: 2 items, trauma: 2 items); life/social functioning (close relationships: 4 items, social relationships: 4 items, general functioning: 4 items), and risk to self and others (6 items). Higher scores indicate higher levels of distress. To distinguish between clinical and non-clinical cut-off values, the four dimensions (scales for both males and females) indicated in the original validation and the Italian version (Evans et al., 2002; Palmieri et al., 2009) will be considered. |
| Academic motivation | before and after the psychological intervention, up to 7 weeks | The Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) is a 20-item self-report questionnaire designed to evaluate the regulation of motivation based on the self-determination theory. Academic motivation is conceptualized according to the degree of autonomy on which the individual behavior is based, expressed through a continuum of increasing self-determination, from not self-determined (amotivation pole) to self-determined (autonomous regulation pole) behavior, from being externally motivated to becoming internally and autonomously driven to perform certain behaviors. The items are rated on a five-point Likert scale (0 = does not correspond at all to 7 = corresponds exactly) and distributed in five subscales--amotivation, external regulation, introjected regulation, identified regulation, and intrinsic motivation. Scores frange from 0 to 140. High score subscale indicates higher endorsement of that motivation type. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Emotion regulation ability | before and after the treatment, up to 7 weeks | The Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) is a 36-item multi-dimensional self-report measure of emotion dysregulation and emotion self-regulation strategies. The total scores range from 36 to 180, with higher scores indicating more difficulty in the emotion regulation component measured |
| perceived loneliness | before and after the intervention, up to 7 weeks | The University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness Scale version 3 (LS3) is a 20-item self-report measure of an individual's subjective feelings of loneliness. Higher scores indicate greater loneliness. A total score ≥ 47 will be considered indicative of higher-than-normal levels of loneliness. |
| drop-out intention | before and after the intervention, up to 7 weeks | Students' intentions to continue or to drop out of the academic course will be measured with self-reported questions. For the present study, the Italian version, which consists of 4 items asking students how often they have thought about not continuing their university degree courses, will be adopted. Scores frange from 4 to 20. Higher scores indicate a greater intention to drop out. |
Countries
Italy
Contacts
Primary ContactAlda Troncone, PhD
Backup ContactGaia Caldarelli, PhD student
Outcome results
None listed