Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Mar 7, 2023
Open Peer Review Period: Mar 7, 2023 - May 2, 2023
Date Accepted: Jul 25, 2023
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
An e-Mental Health Program to Prevent Psychological Distress Among French-speaking International Students in a Linguistic-cultural Minority Context (Ottawa, Alberta and Quebec): Psy-Web protocol.
ABSTRACT
Background:
Introduction: Post-secondary institutions were of the most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. Students and above all international ones have borne important toll associated to restrictions. Canada is among the three top countries hosting international students (ISs) including Francophone students in Quebec and in anglophone part. This was accompanied by other measures such as quarantine, self-isolation, social distancing, travel ban, to cite some. This has had a wide-ranging impact on these ISs. The psychological distress burden may be much greater for Francophone ISs with ordinary limited access to active offers of care in French in addition to cultural and low literacy of the care system. That is, taking advantage of the effectiveness of e-health as a pertinent and topical avenue, our project intends to build a Web based application that cost-effective, user-friendly, anonymous, and capable to prompt interactive interventions as a first-line recourse for controlling the psychological distress.
Objective:
i) to design, implement and maintain the Psy-Web-COVID-19 for the psychological support of ISs and ii) to analyze the results of the use of the Web platform, the additional resources solicited, and the results obtained.
Methods:
This interventional project will use a mixed quantitative/quantitative sequential design in the exploratory phase (Phase 1). A quantitative prospective component (Phase 2) will include the intervention content of the Psy-Web-COVID-19 platform. 105 ISs participants (study group) and 52 ISs (control group), a ratio of 1:2 will be considered. The control group participants include those who did not use the web platform.
Results:
The Psy-Web-COVID-19 will be built through the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) model in the perspective of boosting its robustness. As a front-line resource to prevent psychological distress and ultimately improve their academic performance, the Psy-Web-COVID-19 is an innovative opportunity for high education managers. The project involves a multisectoral partnership.
Conclusions:
The project will develop a promising Web based solution to prevent to address psychological distress. Ultimately, Psy-Web-COVID-19 will be operable in more that French language.
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