Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Mental Health
Date Submitted: Mar 21, 2025
Date Accepted: Sep 4, 2025
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Does it Work? Examining the Acceptability and Effectiveness of a Self-Directed, Web-Based Resource for Stress and Coping in University: Randomized Controlled Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
University students face high levels of stress with limited support for coping and well-being. Campus mental health services are increasingly using digital resources to support students’ stress-management and coping capacity. However, the effectiveness of providing this support through web-based, self-directed means remains unclear.
Objective:
Using a randomized-controlled design, this study examined the acceptability and effectiveness of a self-directed, web-based resource containing evidence-based strategies for stress-management and healthy coping for university students. The study additionally explored the potential benefits of screening and directing students to personalized resources aligned with their needs.
Methods:
Participants consisted of 242 university students (79.9% women; mean age 21.15), assigned to one of three groups (i.e., directed to personalized resources, non-directed, and waitlist comparison), and completed pre, post (4 weeks), and follow-up (8 weeks) measures for stress, coping, and well-being. The resource groups also completed acceptability measures at 2, 4, and 8 weeks after the web-based resource access.
Results:
Results indicate high acceptability, reflecting students’ satisfaction with the resource. Furthermore, significant decreases in stress and unhealthy coping as well as significant increases in coping self-efficacy and healthy coping in the resource groups relative to the comparison group were found. Interestingly, the directed approach showed no added benefit over non-directed resource access.
Conclusions:
In summary, this study demonstrates the acceptability and effectiveness of a self-directed digital resource platform as a viable support option for university student stress and coping.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.