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

研究：确定干预目标以增加本科工程师的心理健康寻求帮助

• 批准号: 2225567
• 负责人: Sarah Wilson
• 金额: $ 34.96万
• 依托单位: University of Kentucky Research Foundation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-01 至 2025-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2225567&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Research; Identifying; intervention; targets; increase

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.

国家数据显示，经历心理健康困扰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。虽然在顺性男性、有色人种和第一代学生中存在待遇差距，但这些群体差异在工程专业学生中更为明显。在本研究中，我们的目的是通过一项基于理论的、多机构的研究，探讨影响不同工程专业学生群体寻求专业帮助的信念，来解决这些对工程专业心理健康治疗利用不足的担忧。该项目将以美国国家科学基金会工程形成研究启动基金的结果为基础，该基金的重点是开发一种调查工具，以测量影响工科本科生心理健康相关求助的关键信念。通过这项工作，该工具将得到改进，以确保代表来自不同背景、在不同机构背景下学习的学生所持有的信念。一旦得到改进，该工具将用于确定未来干预的目标，以增加美国六个不同机构学生的心理健康相关帮助寻求。这种寻求帮助的改善将改善各种工程专业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。本项目将采用混合方法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），以表征不同工程本科学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效度？2)改进后的EMHHI如何在保持跨文化有效性的同时最大化可行性？3)如何使用改进的EMHHI来创建机构概况，以确定未来不同学生群体的心理健康干预目标？最初的EMHHI是为了测量肯塔基大学（一所以白人为主的研究机构）不同身份的工程专业学生的信仰。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仰。通过与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（一所为西班牙裔服务的机构）的合作，我们将使用焦点小组来确定突出的信仰项目，以添加到EMHHI中。其次，认知访谈将增强工具的清晰度。这一改进的EMHHI将通过这三个机构的大规模数据收集加以完善，允许删除在选定的人口亚组（例如，种族/民族、性别、代际地位）中被证明无关紧要的项目。这将提高EMHHI的有效性、明确性和可行性。最后，改进的EMHHI将用于在另外三个机构（例如，私立、理工学院、预科）收集数据。我们将制定一个标准化的数据收集和分析协议，以确定不同工程专业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发展可以增加寻求帮助的行为，并改变工程界的心理健康规范，使其更加包容和支持那些有心理健康困扰的人。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。