College Student Stress: Transitions Over Time

Summary

This research study is being conducted to better understand how college students develop and cope with stress and to identify opportunities to help students notice and respond to stress early before symptoms contribute to significant negative consequences.

This project will be completed in two parts. In the first part (not a trial) participants will be asked to complete a screening survey to determine eligibility. Eligible participants (i.e., those with mild-to-moderate depressive symptoms and not receiving mental health care) will continue into the clinical trial portion (part two). There were 120 students in the clinical trial phase of the study, where 30 were randomly assigned to "assessment only" and 90 to the "intervention" condition.

Conditions

• Depressive Symptoms

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Surveys

Participants (in both arms) will complete surveys once per week and participants in the intervention arm will also complete additional 1-minute surveys daily. Study participation will be completed at the conclusion of the final follow-up survey administered 6-weeks after study enrollment.

BEHAVIORAL

Supportive Text messages

Text messages will be sent Mondays-Sunday if participants are randomized to receive them in a given week, with a daily 50:50 send/no-send randomization. A bank of 25 text messages will be used for the study, providing tips/strategies across a range of topics, including managing time and academic stressors, recommendations for self-care and mood management, and messages geared towards fostering social connections and support. Some messages will contain links to videos, websites, or articles for more information on a topic.

BEHAVIORAL

Personalized Feedback (PF) Report

For individuals that are randomized to receive a Personalized Feedback Report, the study team will send participants a text on a Monday with the feedback from the prior survey (baseline survey in the first week, weekly survey in the next five weeks). There will be graphs for depression, anxiety, stress, and flourishing.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Michigan

  lead OTHER

• National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

  collaborator NIH

Principal Investigators

• Adam Horwitz, Ph.D. · University of Michigan

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

17 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2024-10-01

Primary Completion

2024-11-27

Completion

2024-11-27

Countries

• United States

Study Locations