Preferences for Online and/or Face-to-Face Counseling among University Students in Malaysia

Abstract

Increasingly, online counseling is considered to be a cost-effective and highly accessible method of providing basic counseling and mental health services. To examine the potential of online delivery as a way of increasing overall usage of services, this study looked at students’ attitudes toward and likelihood of using both online and/or face-to-face counseling. A survey was conducted with 409 students from six universities in Malaysia participating. Approximately 35% of participants reported that they would be likely to utilize online counseling services but would be unlikely to participate in face-to-face counseling. Based on these results, it is suggested that offering online counseling, in addition to face-to-face services, could be an effective way for many university counseling centers to increase the utilization of their services and thus better serve their communities.

Mental Health-Related Digital Use by University Students: A Systematic Review

“…The remaining three studies were conducted in Norway, 18 Spain, 19 and Malaysia. 20 In total, 22,024 participants took part in the selected studies, with individual sample sizes varying from 19 21 to 6,034 participants. 22 Response rate MONTAGNI ET AL.…”

“…27,29,40 On the contrary, some other studies reported that students presenting a mental health problem would prefer to interact with a person, whether that be a professional, a friend, or a family member. 20,21,26,32,35 Current usage and willingness to use e-mental health were, in fact, associated to perceived vulnerability 36 and the presence of a psychological problem. 17,18,22,34 In other words, the need for help with mental health issues appeared to be a strong predictor of students' intention to use e-mental health for support seeking.…”

The Influence of Stigma on College Students' Attitudes Toward Online Video Counseling and Face‐to‐Face Counseling

“…OVC is as effective when compared with F2F for providing cognitive behavior therapy to those experiencing panic disorder with agoraphobia (Bouchard et al, ), bulimia nervosa (Mitchell et al, ), and various other psychological disorders (Day & Schneider, ). Although OC has been successfully used to treat specific psychological concerns, attitudes toward this modality have been identified as less favorable when compared with F2F (Lewis, Coursol, Bremer, & Komarenko, ; Rochlen, Beretvas, & Zack, ; Wong, Bonn, Tam, & Wong, ). When investigating how these attitudes and stigma are related, researchers have found that stigma is negatively related to F2F attitudes (Vogel et al, ).…”

Reflexiones sobre el bienestar universitario virtual en Colombia

“…Por ejemplo, Richards (2009) ha encontrado que los estudiantes que han tomado servicios de consejería psicológica virtual en el Trinity College de Dublin, Irlanda han mostrado altos niveles de satisfacción con el mismo y Wong, Bonn, Tam & Wong (2018) también han encontrado lo mismo en estudiantes de la Universidad de Malasia. Esto demuestra que la modalidad de consejería psicológica virtual, puede tener un impacto positivo en los estudiantes si se fomenta una cultura de la interacción virtual (Carmona & Rodríguez, 2017;Vásquez & Arango, 2012) en las instituciones de educación superior y si se definen buenos programas de capacitación 5 (Pipoly, 2013;Ekong, 2006) y atención en consejería psicológica virtual (Poh, et al, 2013).…”