A Randomized Controlled Trial Examining the Efficacy of a Single Session Online Mental Health Program

There is a large body of evidence demonstrating that Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) can be delivered in a self-guided format to improve mental health among college students. However, previous research indicates there are challenges in engaging students in adhering to these time intensive, multi-session self-guided resources. Brief self-guided single session interventions could provide an accessible and acceptable intervention that is easier to adhere to, given their lower intensity and response effort for participation. This proposed study seeks to evaluate a single session online ACT Guide Lite intervention in a sample (n = 100) of Utah State University (USU) college students 18 years of age or older. A randomized controlled trial (RCT) design will be used in which students are randomized to receive ACT Guide Lite or to a waitlist condition in order to test the following predictions: (1) participants assigned to ACT Guide Lite will improve more on the primary therapeutic process of change, psychological flexibility, relative to those not receiving intervention, (2) participants assigned to ACT Guide Lite will improve more on distress, well-being, and interest in seeking help, relative to those not receiving intervention, (3) ACT Guide Lite will be acceptable to college students as indicated by recruitment rates, rates of completing ACT Guide Lite, and self-reported program satisfaction, and (4) areas for future program revisions will also be identified through participants' written feedback on their experiences using the program. USU students will be recruited to participate in the study through the SONA research platform in the Fall 2023 semester. All study procedures will be completed through the secure Qualtrics online research platform, in addition to email and phone contacts prompting relevant steps for the study. All analyses will be run with multilevel modeling with the full intent-to-treat sample to test time by condition interactions.