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.

国家数据表明，经历精神健康困扰的工程专业学生比同龄人寻求专业心理健康帮助的可能性要小得多。尽管有颜色的人，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程专业的学生中进一步明显。在这项研究中，我们旨在通过一项理论上扎根的多个机构研究来解决对工程精神健康治疗的关注，对影响专业帮助寻求各种工程学生人群的信念的多个机构研究。该项目将基于NSF工程形成资助的NSF研究启动的结果，该研究的重点是开发一种调查工具，以衡量影响心理健康与本科工程专业学生寻求帮助的关键信念。通过这项工作，将改进该工具，以确保代表来自不同背景的学生所拥有的信念，并在不同的机构背景下学习。一旦改进，该工具将用于确定未来干预措施的目标，以增加美国六个不同机构的学生寻求与心理健康相关的帮助。寻求帮助的这种改善将改善各种工程专业学生的心理健康和学术成果，包括精神障碍的学生。该项目将采用混合方法来改善和完善基于综合行为模型（IBM）的工程精神健康寻求帮助工具（EMHHI），以表征关键的心理健康帮助寻求帮助的人在多元化的员工中，以表征多样性的学生。通过这项工作，我们旨在解决三个研究问题：1）如何改善原始EMHHI以提高不同机构背景下不同学生的有效性？ 2）如何完善改进的Emhhi以维持跨文化的有效性，同时最大化可行性？ 3）如何使用精致的Emhhi来创建机构概况，以识别各种学生人群中未来心理健康干预措施的目标？最初的Emhhi旨在衡量与肯塔基大学（University of Kentucky）的工程专业学生有关的信念，肯塔基大学（University of Kentucky）是一家主要是研究的白人机构。因此，该项目将确保该工具包括其他机构的不同学生的寻求帮助信念。通过在Prairie View A＆M大学（历史悠久的黑人学院或大学）和休斯敦大学（西班牙裔服务机构）的合作，我们将使用焦点小组来识别出显着的信念项目，以添加到Emhhi中。接下来，认知访谈将提高乐器的清晰度。这种改进的EMHHI将通过这三个机构的大规模数据收集进行完善，从而允许删除在某些人群亚组中证明在某些人口统计学亚组中微不足道的项目（例如，种族/种族，性别，性别，世代状态）。这将提高EMHHI的有效性，清晰度和可行性。最后，精致的EMHHI将用于在其他三个机构（例如私人，理工学，预设计）中收集数据。我们将开发标准化的数据收集和分析协议，以识别各种工程学生和机构环境中各种各样的寻求帮助的信念。基于通过这项工作确定的关键信念的干预措施的制定可以增加寻求帮助的行为，并将工程界的心理健康规范更具包容性和支持对心理健康困扰的人的包容性和支持。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的智力和更广泛影响的评估来通过评估来支持的，这是值得的。