Choi I^{1, 2}, Wang B^{1, 2}, Glozier N^{1, 2}

¹The University Of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, ²ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course, Indooroopilly, Australia

International students are less likely to seek mental health support compared to local students. Common barriers include not recognizing their symptoms as mental health problems or thinking it was not severe enough, not knowing where to seek help, stigma, language barriers, and cost concerns. Providing online psychoeducation and personalised feedback can potentially address some of these barriers and improve international students’ intentions to use mental health services.

With support from a National Foundation for Australia-China Relations competitive grant, we co-designed a mental wellbeing web application with Chinese-speaking international students to support their help-seeking, known as the MindYourHead web-app. The web-app is available in English and Chinese and can be accessed freely by enrolled university students. Students can pick and choose in-app assessments that are of interest to them, and they are provided with personalised feedback on symptom severity, tailored psychoeducation on symptoms and relevant interventions, and tailored information and links on mental health services and evidence-based online resources available.

In a recently completed randomised controlled trial, we evaluated the impact of the MindYourHead app on improving the mental health literacy, stigma, wellbeing, and help-seeking of Chinese-speaking international students. 142 Chinese-speaking international students were randomly allocated to receiving the MindYourHead web-app or an attention control. Participants completed study measures at baseline and one-week post-intervention, and they were interviewed about their user experience. We will present the full results of the study and implications on using digital interventions to support international student help-seeking.

Biography:

Dr Isabella Choi is a clinical psychologist and research fellow interested in exploring ways to improve access and engagement with mental health prevention and treatment in hard-to-reach groups. Her research focuses on help-seeking characteristics and treatment barriers, exploring innovative ways to improve uptake and engagement with digital mental health interventions, and the adaptation and evaluation of digital mental health inventions. Isabella works closely with international students in her clinical work and is interested in research to improve their overall help-seeking, mental health and wellbeing.