Mental Health First Aid for College Students

Mental Health First Aid for College Students: A Multi-campus Randomized Control Trial of a Community Health Intervention

Most college students with mental disorders do not receive treatment, and over 80% of those who die by suicide have never made contact with campus mental health services. Knowledge, stigma, and other health beliefs represent significant barriers to help-seeking for many of these students. However, there have been no large-scale intervention studies for reducing these barriers to mental health treatment on college campuses. This project will fill this gap by determining whether a community mental health education program, Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), is an effective method to increase number of students who seek mental health services on college campuses. MHFA is an international, 12-hour training program that has been shown to increase knowledge of mental illnesses and their treatments, decrease stigma, and increase helping behaviors in community members. However, it has not been tested in a college setting in the United States. To determine the effectiveness of MHFA in US colleges, the proposed project will involve a randomized control trial of the MHFA training program on 32 campuses representing a range of higher education institutions, from community colleges in rural areas to research universities in large, urban areas. The MHFA training program will be administered to peer supports such as residential advisors. Administrative data from campus mental health services and pre- and post-intervention surveys will be used to collect outcome data on service utilization, knowledge, attitudes, and other measures. Data analyses will focus on identifying changes in students' behaviors, knowledge, and attitudes toward mental illnesses that can be attributed to the MHFA training. In addition to testing a novel and timely mental health intervention for college students, this project will result in improved data collection measures for college populations, and will lay the foundation for stronger connections and future collaborations between diverse campus communities. If the MHFA program is successful in reducing stigma and increasing general on-campus awareness and early treatment of emerging mental health problems, then it may provide a cost-effective means for enabling more students to seek early treatments for developing mental health problems.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Depression; Anxiety; Suicidal Ideation; Eating Disorders
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Mental Health First Aid

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 2543
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Michigan
    • Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States, 48104
      • University of Michigan

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Student enrolled in a participating campus as a full-time, residential undergraduate during the 2009-2010 or 2010-2011 academic years. Student must have been living in a participating residence hall.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Students under 18 years of age.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

4

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: Pure control; Practice as usual (no MHFA) in all residences on these campuses.
Experimental: Intervention residence on mixed campus; Mental Health First Aid delivered to these residences, but not all other residences at the same campus.	Behavioral: Mental Health First Aid; Originally developed in 2001, MHFA is a 12-hour course comprised of six modules, covering depression, anxiety, psychosis, substance abuse, eating disorders, and self-harm. Each module includes information about the mental health-related problems (e.g., signs and symptoms), advice on how to respond appropriately, and interactive activities to enhance the learning process. Some modules include videos with perspectives of individuals recovering from mental disorders and examples of how to effectively use the MHFA intervention. Program participants learn how to help individuals in crisis and also how to recognize early warning signs and intervene before mental health problems progress to crises.
Experimental: Pure intervention residence; Mental Health First Aid delivered to this residence and all other residences at the same campus	Behavioral: Mental Health First Aid; Originally developed in 2001, MHFA is a 12-hour course comprised of six modules, covering depression, anxiety, psychosis, substance abuse, eating disorders, and self-harm. Each module includes information about the mental health-related problems (e.g., signs and symptoms), advice on how to respond appropriately, and interactive activities to enhance the learning process. Some modules include videos with perspectives of individuals recovering from mental disorders and examples of how to effectively use the MHFA intervention. Program participants learn how to help individuals in crisis and also how to recognize early warning signs and intervene before mental health problems progress to crises.
No Intervention: Control at mixed campus; Practice as usual (no MHFA) at this residence, but some other residences at same campus are in experimental condition (MHFA).

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Time Frame
Changes in mental health service utilization	baseline, 2 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Michigan
• Collaborators: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Daniel Eisenberg, PhD, University of Michigan; Principal Investigator: Nicole L Speer, PhD, University of Colorado, Denver

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: September 1, 2009
• Primary Completion (Actual): May 1, 2011
• Study Completion (Actual): May 1, 2011

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: December 14, 2013
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 19, 2013
• First Posted (Estimate): December 27, 2013

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimate): December 27, 2013
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 19, 2013
• Last Verified: December 1, 2013

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Behavioral Symptoms; Mental Disorders; Self-Injurious Behavior; Suicide; Feeding and Eating Disorders; Suicidal Ideation
• Other Study ID Numbers: NIMH 1RC1MH089757-01; 1RC1MH089757-01 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)