REThinkAcademy: Helping Universities to Effectively Care for the Mental Health of College Students in the Digital Age

The project aims at monitoring mental health and its mechanism in the student population using a longitudinal design and ecological momentary assessment procedure throughout the first semester of college.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Mental Health Issue
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: StudentMood

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 550
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Romania
  • Cluj-Napoca, Romania
    • Babes-Bolyai University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• student in Babes-Bolyai University in the first year

Exclusion Criteria:

• incapacity of accessing the mobile app

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Screening
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Daily monitoring	Other: StudentMood; StudentMood is an app that uses ecological momentary assessment method to asses mood and other mental health corelates. Participants will have to complete the application (the mood wheel, heart rate and other behavioral data as well as standardized scales) daily throughout the entire semester

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Rational and irrational beliefs	Attitudes and Beliefs Scale 2 Abbreviated Version (ABS-2 - AV; Hyland et al. 2014)	baseline, pre-intervention
Changes in rational and irrational beliefs	Attitudes and Beliefs Scale 2 Abbreviated Version (ABS-2 - AV; Hyland et al. 2014)	immediately after the intervention
Fluctuation in rational and irrational beliefs	Attitudes and Beliefs Scale 2 Abbreviated Version (ABS-2 - AV; Hyland et al. 2014)	during the intervention
Mental Health	Mental health- The General Health Questionnaire, 12-item version (GHQ-12)(Goldberg &Williams, 1988)	baseline, pre-intervention
Changes in Mental Health	Mental health- The General Health Questionnaire, 12-item version (GHQ-12)(Goldberg &Williams, 1988)	immediately after the intervention
Fluctuation in Mental Health	Mental health- The General Health Questionnaire, 12-item version (GHQ-12)(Goldberg &Williams, 1988)	during the intervention
Mood disorders	DASS Parkitny, L., & McAuley, J. (2010). The depression anxiety stress scale (DASS). Journal of physiotherapy, 56(3), 204.	baseline, pre-intervention
Changes in mood disorders	DASS Parkitny, L., & McAuley, J. (2010). The depression anxiety stress scale (DASS). Journal of physiotherapy, 56(3), 204.	Post-intervention (one week after the intervention)
Fluctuation in mood disorders	DASS Parkitny, L., & McAuley, J. (2010). The depression anxiety stress scale (DASS). Journal of physiotherapy, 56(3), 204.	during the intervention
Fluctuation in academic stress	Lin, Y. M., & Chen, F. S. (2009). Academic stress inventory of students at universities and colleges of technology. World Transactions on Engineering and Technology Education, 7(2), 157-162.	during the intervention
Fluctuation in life experiences	Kohn, P. M., Lafreniere, K., & Gurevich, M. (1990). The inventory of college students' recent life experiences: A decontaminated hassles scale for a special population. Journal of behavioral medicine, 13(6), 619-630.	during the intervention
Fluctuations in emotion regulation	Garnefski, Nadia, and Vivian Kraaij. "Cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire-development of a short 18-item version (CERQ-short)." Personality and individual differences 41.6 (2006): 1045-1053.	during the intervention
Fluctuations in college student stress	Feldt, R. C. (2008). Development of a brief measure of college stress: The college student stress scale. Psychological reports, 102(3), 855-860.	during the intervention
Fluctuations in stress coping styles	Lin, Y. M., & Chen, F. S. (2010). A stress coping style inventory of students at universities and colleges of technology. World Transactions on Engineering and Technology Education, 8(1), 67-72.	during the intervention
Student adaptation to college	College Adaptation Questionaire is a scale ) to assess how well students have adjusted to university life, is a self-report instrument consisting of 18 statements. Respondents indicate on a seven-point rating scale how well each statement applies Van Rooijen, L. (1986). Advanced students' adaptation to college. Higher Education, 15(3), 197-209.	during the intervention

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Trauma	Childhood Trauma Screener Witt, A., Öz, Y., Sachser, C. et al. Validation and standardization of the Childhood Trauma Screener (CTS) in the general population. Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health 16, 73 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13034-022-00506-6	baseline, pre-intervention
Loneliness	Snape, D., & Martin, G. (2018). Measuring loneliness: guidance for use of the National indicators on surveys. Office for National Statistics.	baseline, pre-intervention
Fluctuation in loneliness	Snape, D., & Martin, G. (2018). Measuring loneliness: guidance for use of the National indicators on surveys. Office for National Statistics.	during the intervention

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Babes-Bolyai University
• Collaborators: The Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): October 20, 2022
• Primary Completion (Actual): August 31, 2023
• Study Completion (Actual): September 30, 2023

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: November 29, 2022
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 7, 2022
• First Posted (Actual): December 16, 2022

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimated): November 1, 2024
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 30, 2024
• Last Verified: October 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: REThin Academy

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No