Counselling Intervention for College Students Experienced Psychological Distress
- Conditions
- University StudentsPsychological DistressPsychological Intervention
- Interventions
- Behavioral: four weekly psychological counselling intervention
- Registration Number
- NCT06333444
- Lead Sponsor
- University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli"
- Brief Summary
The goal of this clinical trial is to evaluate mental health and academic motivation in university students asking help to university counselling service (UCS) in Southern Italy before anf after four weekly psychological sessions.
The main question it aims to answer are:
* is the psychological counselling intervention useful in improving psychological distress and academic motivation
* which psychological variables predict the intervention outcome
- Detailed Description
The participants will be university students who completed psychological counselling intervention delivered by UCS (University of Campania, Italy). They will be asked to completed an internet-based survey, administered anonymously through Google Forms. The survey consist of two sections. The first section includes questions about sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., gender and age), enrollment year, type of university course attended, academic standing (i.e., whether all exams within the prescribed period had been passed), and previous or current contact with psychological or psychiatric mental health services (university or non-university). The second section comprises four scales that assessed the variables of interest.
To measure psychological distress and problems, the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation-Outcome Measure (CORE-OM) will be used. Feelings of loneliness will be assessed using the University of California-Los Angeles Loneliness Scale version 3 (UCLA-LS3). Emotion regulation will be assessed using the Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). Students intentions to continue or to drop out of the academic course will be measured with self-reported questions.
Recruitment & Eligibility
- Status
- RECRUITING
- Sex
- All
- Target Recruitment
- 100
- being university students who asked psychological help to university counselling service and completed the intervention
- do not speak Italian
Study & Design
- Study Type
- INTERVENTIONAL
- Study Design
- SINGLE_GROUP
- Arm && Interventions
Group Intervention Description Psychological intervention four weekly psychological counselling intervention four weekly psychological counselling intervention
- Primary Outcome Measures
Name Time Method psychological distress before and after the treatment, up to 7 weeks To measure psychological distress and problems, the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation-Outcome Measure (CORE-OM) (Barkham et al., 1998; Evans et al., 2000). The CORE-OM is a 34-item self-report measure that evaluates the level of psychological distress will be used. The measure covers four domains: subjective well-being (4 items), problems/symptoms (depression: 4 items, anxiety: 4 items, physical problems: 2 items, trauma: 2 items); life/social functioning (close relationships: 4 items, social relationships: 4 items, general functioning: 4 items), and risk to self and others (6 items). Higher scores indicate higher levels of distress. To distinguish between clinical and non-clinical cut-off values, the four dimensions (scales for both males and females) indicated in the original validation and the Italian version (Evans et al., 2002; Palmieri et al., 2009) will be considered.
Academic motivation before and after the psychological intervention, up to 7 weeks The Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) is a 20-item self-report questionnaire designed to evaluate the regulation of motivation based on the self-determination theory. Academic motivation is conceptualized according to the degree of autonomy on which the individual behavior is based, expressed through a continuum of increasing self-determination, from not self-determined (amotivation pole) to self-determined (autonomous regulation pole) behavior, from being externally motivated to becoming internally and autonomously driven to perform certain behaviors. The items are rated on a five-point Likert scale (0 = does not correspond at all to 7 = corresponds exactly) and distributed in five subscales--amotivation, external regulation, introjected regulation, identified regulation, and intrinsic motivation. Scores frange from 0 to 140. High score subscale indicates higher endorsement of that motivation type.
- Secondary Outcome Measures
Name Time Method drop-out intention before and after the intervention, up to 7 weeks Students' intentions to continue or to drop out of the academic course will be measured with self-reported questions. For the present study, the Italian version, which consists of 4 items asking students how often they have thought about not continuing their university degree courses, will be adopted. Scores frange from 4 to 20. Higher scores indicate a greater intention to drop out.
Emotion regulation ability before and after the treatment, up to 7 weeks The Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) is a 36-item multi-dimensional self-report measure of emotion dysregulation and emotion self-regulation strategies. The total scores range from 36 to 180, with higher scores indicating more difficulty in the emotion regulation component measured
perceived loneliness before and after the intervention, up to 7 weeks The University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness Scale version 3 (LS3) is a 20-item self-report measure of an individual's subjective feelings of loneliness. Higher scores indicate greater loneliness. A total score ≥ 47 will be considered indicative of higher-than-normal levels of loneliness.
Trial Locations
- Locations (1)
University of Campania
🇮🇹Caserta, Italy