Grant: Canada Postdoctoral Research Award (CPRA) program

Students face diverse stressors which may lead to anxiety, depression, and other health-related problems. Anxiety and depression often occur together, and one can make the other worse over time. Stress from school, not getting enough sleep, and the pressures of growing up all contribute to these problems. While therapies like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy have proven to help, many students face other issues such as stigma, shortage of therapists, long wait times, and costs or distance that make accessing therapy difficult. In an effort to provide accessible mental health support, the Wellness4Students program, designed for students takes advantage of their familiarity with digital communication tools like text messaging. This program delivers free daily messages aimed at supporting mental health and well-being while making mental health support simple, private, and accessible. The research has two main goals. First, to understand how common anxiety, depression, and poor well-being are among students across Canada, and Ghana, and the factors linked to these issues. Second, to evaluate whether the program can reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression and improve overall well-being for users. The study will also explore students' satisfaction with the program. Students will subscribe to the program on their own and receive messages for six months. Surveys will be conducted using well-known mental health tools to measure symptoms of depression, anxiety, and well-being at the start, after six weeks, at three and six months. Statistical tools and machine learning techniques will be used to analyze the data. It is anticipated that the Wellness4Students program will reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, improve well-being, and have high satisfaction ratings from students. These findings will help inform policies and programs aimed at improving mental health for students and provide important insights into students' mental health.