Stress management interventions for college students: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Abstract

This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to examine the effects of stress management interventions in reducing stress, depression, and anxiety among college students. Two separate meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials were conducted using the random-effects model, for students with highstress levels (n = 8) and for the unselected college student population (n = 46). Overall, main results showed moderate intervention effects for stress, depression, and anxiety in both groups. Subgroup analyses yielded significant differences related to the theoretical background, the type of control condition, and the length of the intervention in trials targeting students with high-stress levels. However, these subgroup differences, except for the theoretical background, were not observed in trials including unselected samples. Our results suggest that stress management interventions may be effective in reducing distress among college students. Public Health Significance StatementSymptoms of stress are common among college students. Stress management programs are provided to help students in reducing stress. The present study showed that stress management programs have the potential to decrease stress and prevent mental health problems in higher education.

A qualitative study of university students' experience of Internet‐based CBT for depression

“…Face-to-face individual counselling is an effective approach to promoting student mental health (Amanvermez et al, 2020), but it has been argued that this mode of providing treatment may itself be a barrier to care for some students, highlighting the need to develop alternative models of intervention which do not rely on direct contact between therapist and patient (Ebert, Nobis, et al, 2017;Kazdin & Blase, 2011). Furthermore, in resource-constrained environments like South Africa, where there are marked shortages of trained mental health professionals and high rates of mental illness, it seems unlikely that labour-intensive traditional modes of psychotherapy will be a feasible or affordable way to meet students' mental health care needs (Bantjes et al, 2020).…”

Pandemics and Clinical Psychology

“…Various types of online stress management interventions, as used in non-pandemic times, have been shown to be useful in reducing distress ( Amanvermez et al., 2020 ), and can be adapted for managing distress during COVID-19 lockdown ( Jasti et al., 2020 ). Innovative interventions using online-administered virtual reality are also under development, providing interventions such as imagery-augmented relaxation exercises ( Riva and Riva, 2020 ).…”

Evaluation of Impact of Ethics of Yoga in the Psychological Health of College Students: A Randomized Control Trial

“…Many reviews show yoga including meditation and mindfulness interventions demonstrate a reduction in perceived stress, depression and anxiety in youth during education (6)(7)(8)(9)(10) . According to previous findings, yoga is one of the interventions increasingly popular with tertiary education students, and positive outcomes were reported in most studies.…”