I’m always on the lookout for how technology can better help people with mental health issues. But some uses of technology leave me scratching my head. Take, for instance, this one:
If you email a depression assessment quiz to college students, some will take it. Some of those who take it will have depression.
Those are the astounding findings from a research study presented the other day at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association.
But few of the students who received the email at four different colleges bothered taking the quiz — only 691 students — suggesting that it remains an ineffective way of reaching students (except those who may already believe they have or may be at risk for depression).
Worse yet, the email quiz did nothing to encourage students to seek out treatment for depression…
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I believe an approach like this would be ineffective because it seems too much like spam. If a college student is feeling depressed it is most likely situationally caused by feeling out of place in the new surroundings or overwhelmed by stress. To receive an email that was likely sent to everyone else in the college network does not feel anything like someone is reaching out to lend a helping hand. If you want to reach college students and let them know that they are not alone it must be done in a way that feels personally directed to that individual. To use technology such as the internet to assist in reaching this demographic I would suggest something more individualized such as commenting on a facebook status.
As a university student who does have depression, I’ve got to say the only reason I started therapy was because my roommate basically dragged me to the oncampus clinic. Otherwise I wouldn’t have gone. I’d done a lot of different psych-related experiments including survey taking, and one of them was to test for depression and other mental illness. The researcher got worried enough to call me and recommend therapy… which of course I didn’t listen to. :S But now that I’m in therapy, been in psych-groups on campus and am on antidepressants I’m much happier for it.
I’ve been a mental health advocate since 2002 and I’ve seen how much massive e-mails, posters, pamphlets, flyers, etc. fail when they reach the public. Although people might see them, they don’t act on it, just like the e-mails. It’s always very hard to figure out ways to reach out to students who live with mental health concerns and feel so stigmatized by the pressure society has placed on them to be “perfect”. So many people feel as if living with depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, etc. is the end of the world, and it’s not!
At pepfly, we found a new way to reach out to people. They can go to pepfly.com and type in how they feel, how they’d like to feel, or how they want to feel, and they receive pep (i.e. media – photos, videos, poems, etc.) to boost their emotional wellbeing. You can check out our pep Today, which is an amazing (and short) video of the sunset from outer space: http://www.pepfly.com/a/7257
please help i to battle depression and i am s full time nurse practitoner student . I work full time 40hour +, and take care of my 84 year od father and my family…i beginning to feel mme and classes are falling apart ..please help.
Pat
Technology has saved several people I know, who struggle with depression. They can find others on Twitter, Facebook, (in the day) IRC or Newsgroups.. because they can go online and reach out, in the middle of the depressive episode.
The thing about an email is, as we all know, someone in the middle of struggling with depression doesn’t always have what it takes to go out and seek help. If they had that energy, they would already be getting support and help.. and they wouldn’t feel the need to take a quiz to try and make some sense of the he** they’re going through.
It would almost make more sense to have someone follow up with those who scored “high” on the depression test, to connect them to online support.
This is probably because we get so many emails everyday, including frequent surveys for all sorts of things, it feels like work to respond to screening quizzes. Plus there’s privacy issues because email isn’t that secure. (plus they may not have a private place to take it).
I think instead, a better idea would be to screen students who come into the health center for example, at least with a few basic questions or perhaps a short inventory they fill out while waiting. Most people with depression seek out medical services, research shows that, so it’s a good target population. And lets face it, mental health issues like anxiety and depression are one of the main health issues a young student will face (that and minor infectious diseases and alcohol related things are 3 main health issues, I think). Also, deans and advisers and possibly professors should advice students facing academic difficulty to get screening because, academic issues are often caused by depression in college students.
Also, I disagree Shelby’s, the first poster, claim that feeling disconnected is a the usual cause of college student depression. It could be many other reasons. For example, many students are coming to college with significant pre-existing mood and anxiety issues and young adulthood is the age when most mental health issues arise anyway. Granted feeling disconnect if often the result of depression though.