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HomeONGOINGA Unified Prevention Program for Depression and Anxiety

A Unified Prevention Program for Depression and Anxiety

Project Description

The goal of this project was to create and evaluate a brief, online course for students that teaches helpful skills for coping with difficult emotions (e.g., anxiety, sadness/homesickness, anger) that commonly occur in the transition to college. A total of 243 incoming freshman students were randomly assigned to either receive the course (120 students) or assessments only (123 students), and were followed up at one month, six months, and eight months. Satisfaction ratings and student feedback indicated that the majority of students were highly satisfied with the course and found the skills helpful. Of note, students who were randomized to receive the course had significantly higher grade point averages for the Fall 2017 semester compared to the control condition. However, there were no significant differences between conditions on symptom outcomes. Future research could examine whether these results would be the same if the program was tested in a selected sample of students who were already experiencing symptoms. Overall, this study suggests that a brief (i.e., 1-2 hour), emotion-focused, online program may be helpful for first-year college students. However, this brief intervention may not significantly impact mental health variables.

Sauer-Zavala, S., Tirpak, J. W., Eustis, E. H., Woods, B. K., & Russell, K. (2020). Unified Protocol for the transdiagnostic prevention of emotional disorders: Evaluation of a brief, online course for college freshmen. Behavior Therapy.

In The News

Read the DL&I story: Preventing Student Depression & Anxiety 

Project Team

Dr. Zavala

Shannon Sauer-Zavala

Shannon Sauer-Zavala is currently an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Kentucky. She was previously a Research Associate Professor at Boston University and the former director of the Unified Protocol Institute. Dr. Sauer-Zavala maintains an adjunct appointment at Boston University. Her work is focused on exploring emotion-focused mechanisms that maintain psychological symptoms and using this information to develop more targeted, easily-disseminated intervention strategies.

Eustis

Elizabeth H. Eustis, Ph.D.

Liz Eustis is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University. She is also the Associate Director of the Unified Protocol Institute. Dr. Eustis has a specific interest in college student mental health, and in the use of technology to increase access to evidence-based mental healthcare. Her research focuses on identifying mechanisms of change in treatments for anxiety and related disorders to inform the flexible adaptation, dissemination, and implementation of these approaches in diverse contexts.

Projects

  • COMPLETED (24)
  • ONGOING (29)

Tags

Active Learning Digital Infrastructure Global Connection Lifelong Learning Mentoring & Advising MOOC Project-Based Learning

Course Information

  • Starts:May 31, 2017
  • Duration:6 weeks (Estimated 4-6 hours per week)

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Digital Learning & Innovation is available to help all Boston University faculty and academic leadership. Contact us at digital@bu.edu.

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