Enhancing Social Support, Hardiness, and Acculturation to Improve Mental Health among Asian Indian International Students

Abstract

International students, upon relocation to a foreign country, undergo a major life event which can cause distress that can potentially affect their mental health. This study pilot tested an internet-based intervention to enhance the social support, hardiness, and acculturation among students of Asian Indian origin at a large midwestern university. A pretest-posttest randomized design was employed. The pretest was administered to 60 students who were then randomly assigned to experimental and comparison groups. The experimental group was offered online instruction about social support, hardiness, and acculturation through Blackboard over 2 months. The comparison group received an equivalent protocol based on general wellness. Repeated measures ANOVA was done which showed significant improvement in mental health variable (F(1, 37) = 4.768, p < 0.05). Recommendations for replicating such interventions in other groups of international students are presented.

Computer-Delivered and Web-Based Interventions to Improve Depression, Anxiety, and Psychological Well-Being of University Students: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…The symptomology measured within trials were depression [28,42-52], anxiety [28,42-48,50], stress [46,53-55], psychological distress [50,54,56], social anxiety [52], and examination anxiety [57]. Some interventions focused on general psychological well-being: improving relationship functioning [43,44], decreasing elevated levels of perfectionism [28,42], increasing students’ use of mindfulness [54], improving international students’ social support, acculturation, and hardiness [56], and increasing use of lucid dreaming to help alleviate depression [51]. Of the studies, seven trials were of three interventions conducted on separate samples; therefore, there are 14 distinct interventions for review.…”

“…Inclusion criteria included: elevated perfectionism [28,42], elevated stress [53,55], minimal/mild symptoms of depression and anxiety [45,50], low/moderate psychological distress [47], elevated anxiety sensitivity [48], elevated psychological distress [49], self-reported examination anxiety [57], and mild/moderate levels of depression, anxiety, or stress [46]. Five trials were universal, in which mental symptomology were not explicit inclusion criteria; participants had to be in ≥4 month long romantic relationships [43,44], be Indian international students [56], have no lucid dreaming experience [51], or have access to an Internet-connected computer [54]. One intervention was treatment as participants met DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for social anxiety [52].…”

“…Five trials were delivered at a study site, eg, researcher-monitored computer lab [43-45,47,50,55], while participants in six Internet-based interventions accessed the intervention in their own location [48,49,52,53,56,57]. A total of 14 trials had interventions with an modular/sectional format [28,42-48,50,52,54-57] ranging from three [56] to 13 modules [28,42]. The other trials coupled module-based (“MoodGym”) and psycho-educational (“BluePages”) websites [49], provided biweekly instruction via a website [51], and included a psycho-educational stress management website [53].…”

“…Seven trials were classified as self-administered [28,42,48,51-53,57], with nine being semi-guided [43-47,50,54-56]. Participants in one trial received no reminders but it was unsure if there was face-to-face/verbal contact between researchers and participants [49].…”

“…Participants in one trial received no reminders but it was unsure if there was face-to-face/verbal contact between researchers and participants [49]. For semi-guided interventions, six trials involved sending standardized emails periodically to encourage participants to complete the intervention [54,56], or to remind participants about the principles learned in the computer-based intervention [43-45,55]. Chiauzzi [53] sent reminder emails only if participants were not accessing the intervention for the required duration.…”