BACKGROUND
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, online stress management resources such as infographics and online workshops have been central in supporting university students’ mental health and well-being. However, there is a lack of research on students’ satisfaction with these approaches. Furthermore, mental health stigma has been suggested to influence student’s help-seeking behaviours and may impact their uptake of online resources.
OBJECTIVE
Thus, the present study compared potential differences in students’ satisfaction and strategy use with the infographic, an innovative emerging resource modality, and the online workshop, a more common and standard online modality. The present study further examined the relative contribution of students’ strategy use and family-based mental health stigma in predicting their sustained satisfaction with the two online stress management approaches.
METHODS
University students (N = 113; Mage = 20.93, SD = 1.53; 88.5% women) completed an online self-report measure of family-based mental health stigma at baseline and were randomly assigned either to the infographic group (n = 60) or the online workshop group (n = 53). All participants reported their satisfaction at post (T1) and follow-up (T2) and strategy use at T2.
RESULTS
Interestingly, a two-way mixed ANOVA revealed no significant interaction or main effect of group, however, despite their high satisfaction at both T1 and T2, there was a significant decrease in satisfaction from T1 to T2. In addition, a one-way ANOVA revealed no significant difference in strategy use between groups. Results from a hierarchical multiple regression revealed that students’ strategy use positively predicted T2 satisfaction in both groups. However, only in the online workshop group did family-based mental health stigma predict T2 satisfaction over and above strategy use.
CONCLUSIONS
While both approaches demonstrated high satisfaction at T1 and T2, findings highlight the potential utility of interactive infographics since they are less resource-intensive than online workshops, and students’ satisfaction with them is not impacted by family-based mental health stigma.