The Effects of Online Single-Session Interventions on College Student Well-being

This study seeks to investigate the effects of an online single-session intervention on college student mental health and well-being. Undergraduate students from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard will be randomized to a 30-minute single-session intervention or a study skills control group. Students' depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, positive and negative affect, and subjective well-being will be assessed up to 12 weeks post-intervention.

The design of our study is a randomized control trial. After enrollment in the study, participants will randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In each condition, participants will be asked to complete an initial survey of mental health and well-being measures. Following this survey, participants will complete either a well-being skills single-session intervention or control single-session intervention (study skills) depending on which condition they were assigned to. These single-session interventions educate the participant on their focal concept and teach them exercises to improve that skill. Completing the single-session intervention will take approximately 20-30 minutes. After completing their single-session intervention, all participants will retake the measures of mental health and well-being presented to them at the beginning of the program. Participants will also be asked to complete measures of intervention feasibility, acceptability and appropriateness at this time. Following this initial intervention, participants will retake the measures of well-being and mental health at 2 weeks, 4 weeks, and 12 weeks after they completed the intervention. This will allow us to fulfill our first objective by determining how long single-session interventions improve undergraduate mental health and well-being.