Response and ongoing skills use following a single-session virtual cognitive behavioral workshop for graduate students.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: Graduate students frequently experience anxiety, depression, and psychological distress. Counseling centers struggle to meet this need. Brief, skills-based treatments to mitigate burgeoning or mild mental health problems could alleviate this problem. PARTICIPANTS: Participants were 51 graduate students in years one through seven of their respective programs. METHODS: We examined a single-session virtual cognitive behavioral workshop and outcomes up to 6-months later. RESULTS: The program was feasible, acceptable, and beneficial for mood, anxiety, and emotion regulation, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. A majority of participants reported ongoing skills use at follow-up. Primary barriers to more frequent use were forgetting, time constraints, and difficulty when experiencing strong emotions. Few participants endorsed expecting that skills would not be helpful or forgetting how to use skills. CONCLUSIONS: This intervention may provide scalable, much needed aid to graduate schools. Moreover, results highlight opportunities for further enhancing brief interventions.