International students, upon relocation to a foreign country, undergo a major life event which can cause distress that can potentially affect their mental health. This study pilot tested an internet-based intervention to enhance the social support, hardiness, and acculturation among students of Asian Indian origin at a large midwestern university. A pretest-posttest randomized design was employed. The pretest was administered to 60 students who were then randomly assigned to experimental and comparison groups. The experimental group was offered online instruction about social support, hardiness, and acculturation through Blackboard over 2 months. The comparison group received an equivalent protocol based on general wellness. Repeated measures ANOVA was done which showed significant improvement in mental health variable (F(1, 37) = 4.768, p < 0.05). Recommendations for replicating such interventions in other groups of international students are presented.

This study determined the role of social support, hardiness, and acculturation as predictors of mental health among international Asian Indian students enrolled at two large public universities in Ohio. A sample of 185 students completed a 75-item online instrument assessing their social support levels, acculturation, hardiness, and their mental health. Regression analyses were conducted to test for variance in mental health attributable to each of the three independent variables. The final regression model revealed that the belonging aspect of social support, acculturation and prejudice of acculturation scale, and commitment and control of hardiness were all predictive of mental health (R2 = 0.523). Recommendations have been offered to develop interventions that will help strengthen the social support, hardiness, and acculturation of international students and help improve their mental health. Recommendations for development of future Web-based studies also are offered.

residency training programs should attempt to incorporate measures that would help boost the social support and acculturation of international medical graduates (especially junior-level trainees). Acculturation could be improved by language training and courses in American history, culture, and customs, and social support could be expanded by mentoring relationships.

Mental illnesses contribute to substantial morbidity in the population. Education for prevention and control of mental illnesses is mandatory. Psychoeducation is the specialized education that comprises of educational endeavors directed toward the patients and their families with an aim to help prevent relapse of mental illnesses and restoration of health for mentally ill patients. Several studies have proven the value of psychoeducation in prevention and control of mental illnesses ranging from depression to schizophrenia. Psychoeducation helps the mentally ill by improving treatment adherence. Psychoeducation is a subset of health education. Psychoeducation imparted by medical professionals due to insufficient training, insufficient resources and insufficient time is at best modest. Therefore, health educators who have specialized training in health education are very well suited for psychoeducation. However, the amount of training currently being offered in many health education programs nationwide at the undergraduate and the graduate level is not sufficient to qualify the educator for dealing with mental illnesses. More course work in mental illnesses and their prevention needs to be in place. Also prospective studies need to be designed for testing the efficacy of health educators in psychoeducation. Finally incorporation of behavioral theories to psychoeducation by the profession of health education will make it more effective.

Migration predisposes international students to problems related to mental health. Students from Asia experience a totally different culture when they move to the United States. Within Asia there are several heterogeneous subgroups and one such group is that of South Asians or the students from the Indian Subcontinent that share somewhat similar culture. Often due to achievement of academic success this group is considered a “model minority” group but that is not the case when we see mental health issues. Hence, the purpose of this study was to identify predictors of mental health and psychological well being in the migrant student populations from South Asia and design recommendations for a health education intervention for this population. An extensive search of CINAHL, ERIC, MEDLINE, and Google scholar was done. It was found that predictors have been classified into three main research domains: personal growth, subjective well being, and those related to stress resistant personality. A more pragmatic classification was done that classified the factors into easily modifiable and non modifiable groups with a further break down into individual and environmental factors. For designing health education interventions modifiable individual level modifiable constructs such as acculturation, competence, coping, English proficiency, life satisfaction, religiosity, self esteem, social efficacy, and social support, must be targeted one at a time. Efforts must be made to build skills as opposed to mere cognitive development and the health education interventions must be culturally competent.