Research: Identifying intervention targets to increase mental health help seeking in undergraduate engineers

国家数据显示，经历心理健康困境的工科学生比同龄人寻求专业心理健康帮助的可能性要小得多。虽然顺性男性、有色人种和第一代学生存在治疗差距，但这些群体差异在工科学生中更加明显。在这项研究中，我们旨在通过一项有理论基础的多机构研究，对影响不同工科学生群体寻求专业帮助的信念进行研究，以解决这些关于工程学中心理健康治疗未得到充分利用的问题。这个项目将建立在国家科学基金会工程形成研究启动基金的结果之上，该基金专注于开发一种调查工具，以衡量影响工科本科生心理健康相关帮助寻求的关键信念。通过这项工作，这一工具将得到改进，以确保来自不同背景、在不同机构背景下学习的学生所持有的信念得到代表。一旦得到改进，该工具将被用于确定未来干预的目标，以增加美国六所不同机构的学生寻求心理健康相关帮助的人数。这一改善将改善不同工科学生的心理健康和学业成绩，包括那些有心理健康障碍的学生。本项目将应用混合方法来改进和完善基于综合行为模型(IBM)的工程心理健康求助工具(EMHHI)，以表征不同工科本科生的关键心理健康求助信念。通过这项工作，我们旨在解决三个研究问题：1)如何改进原始的EMHHI以提高不同院校背景下不同学生的有效性？2)如何改进改进的EMHHI以保持跨文化有效性，同时最大限度地提高可行性？3)如何使用改进的EMHHI来创建机构概况，以确定未来在不同学生群体中进行心理健康干预的目标？最初的EMHHI旨在衡量肯塔基大学不同身份的工科学生的信念，肯塔基大学是一所专注于研究的以白人为主的机构。因此，该项目将确保该工具包含其他机构不同学生的求助信念。通过在Prairie View A&amp；M大学(一所历史上的黑人学院或大学)和休斯顿大学(一所为拉美裔服务的机构)的合作，我们将使用焦点小组来确定突出的信念项目，并将其添加到EMHHI中。接下来，认知访谈将增强工具的清晰度。这一改进后的EMHHI将通过在这三个机构进行大规模数据收集来完善，以便删除在选定的人口子组中被证明无关紧要的项目(例如，种族/族裔、性别、代际地位)。这将提高EMHHI的有效性、清晰度和可行性。最后，改进后的EMHHI将用于在另外三个机构(如私立、理工学院、工程预科)收集数据。我们将开发一个标准化的数据收集和分析协议，以确定在不同的工科学生和机构背景下的关键求助信念。通过这项工作确定的基于关键信念的干预措施的开发可以增加求助行为，并将工程界的心理健康规范转变为更具包容性和对精神健康困难的人提供支持。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

National data show that engineering students experiencing mental health distress are significantly less likely than their peers to seek professional mental health help. While treatment gaps exist for cisgender men, persons of color, and first-generation students, these group disparities are further pronounced among engineering students. In this study, we aim to address these concerns about mental health treatment underutilization in engineering through a theoretically grounded, multi-institution study of the beliefs influencing professional help seeking in diverse engineering student populations. This project will build on results from an NSF Research Initiation in Engineering Formation grant which focused on developing a survey instrument to measure the key beliefs that influence mental health related help seeking in undergraduate engineering students. Through this work, the instrument will be improved to ensure representation of the beliefs held by students from diverse backgrounds, studying in different institutional contexts. Once improved, the instrument will be used to identify targets for future interventions to increase mental health related help seeking in students at six different institutions across the United States. This improvement in help seeking will improve the mental health and academic outcomes of diverse engineering students, including those with mental health disabilities.This project will apply a mixed-methods approach to improve and refine the Engineering Mental Health Help-seeking Instrument (EMHHI) based on the Integrated Behavioral Model (IBM) to characterize key mental health help-seeking beliefs in diverse undergraduate engineering students. Through this work, we aim to address three research questions: 1) How can the original EMHHI be improved to enhance validity for diverse students in different institutional contexts? 2) How can the improved EMHHI be refined to maintain cross-cultural validity while maximizing feasibility? 3) How can the refined EMHHI be used to create institutional profiles that identify targets for future mental health interventions in diverse student populations? The original EMHHI was designed to measure beliefs relevant to engineering students with diverse identities at the University of Kentucky, a research-focused predominantly White institution. Therefore, this project will ensure that the instrument is inclusive of help-seeking beliefs of diverse students at other institutions. Through collaborations at Prairie View A&M University (a Historically Black College or University) and University of Houston (a Hispanic-serving Institution), we will use focus groups to identify salient belief items to add to the EMHHI. Next, cognitive interviews will enhance the clarity of the instrument. This improved EMHHI will be refined through large-scale data collection at these three institutions, allowing for removal of items that prove insignificant across select demographic subgroups (e.g., race/ethnicity, gender, generational status). This will improve the validity, clarity and feasibility of the EMHHI. Finally, the refined EMHHI will be used to collect data at three additional institutions (e.g., private, polytechnic, pre-engineering). We will develop a standardized data collection and analysis protocol for identifying key help-seeking beliefs in a diverse array of engineering students and institutional contexts. Development of interventions based on key beliefs identified through this work could increase help-seeking behavior and shift the mental health norms of the engineering community to be more inclusive and supportive of those in mental health distress.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.