The feasibility of CoMUni: a co-developed intervention to increase mental health help-seeking intentions in UK undergraduate students
Background The number of students at UK universities experiencing mental health problems during their studies is increasing year on year. Despite the risks associated with leaving these problems unaddressed, many students will not seek any form of help due to a number of current barriers such as stigma and lack of accessibility. Social media plays a big part in students' day-to-day lives and previous work has highlighted its potential to facilitate help-seeking. The aim of this work was to co-develop and assess the feasibility of a social media-based intervention to increase student help-seeking behaviours. Method An initial survey and workshops were conducted to understand students current help-seeking behaviours, preferences and barriers faced. Based on these results, a student team co-developed an intervention to address the barriers outlined with guidance from the behaviour change wheel framework. Finally, a feasibility study of the intervention was conducted to assess its acceptability in its intended context. Findings Results of the survey and workshops provided an up-to-date overview of students' help-seeking behaviours, highlighting a number of current barriers. The co-production process led to the development of the CoMUni intervention, which was found to have good levels of acceptability from students. Conclusion This work supports the potential for social media to be used within an intervention to increase student help-seeking behaviours. It also supports the benefit of utilising a co-production approach with university students and provides an example of how co-production values can be successfully upheld in this context. The intervention was received positively by students in the feasibility study but future work will determine the exact effect of CoMUni on students help-seeking behaviours.
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations