Community belongingness during COVID-19 predicts anxiety and depression treatment change in college students.

OBJECTIVE: Community belongingness has been shown to be related to mental health outcomes in college students; however, little work has evaluated whether community belongingness impacts treatment change, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, when social isolation and mental health concerns are exacerbated. Accordingly, the current study evaluated community belongingness as a predictor of treatment change for anxiety and depression in a university counseling center. METHOD: Participants included 516 young adults with clinical levels of anxiety or depression who attended at least two individual therapy sessions at a university counseling center during fall 2020. Participants completed broad measures of psychosocial functioning at each session. RESULTS: Paired-samples t-tests indicated that students demonstrated significant decreases in anxiety and depression after just one session. Linear stepwise regressions revealed that community belongingness was a significant predictor of symptom improvement for both anxiety and depression. CONCLUSION: These results suggest improving community belongingness on college campuses may be a way to buffer mental health and improve treatment outcomes for students seeking psychological services. Specific clinical and educational recommendations for ways to improve community belongingness are discussed.

A brief peer gatekeeper suicide prevention training: Results of an open pilot trial.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the present study was to test a 1-hour peer suicide gatekeeper training for students from the broad college community in the context of an open pilot trial. METHOD: Two-hundred and thirty-one college students were recruited university-wide, Mage  = 20.7, 65.4% female, and completed a peer suicide prevention gatekeeping training program. Assessments were completed at pre-training and post-training as well as 3-month follow-up. RESULTS: This brief peer suicide gatekeeper training program was associated with increases in suicide prevention knowledge. It was also associated with an increase in the number of students who identified suicidal youth and made mental health referrals, as well as total number of referrals made, over the course of three months. Females reported greater improvement in suicide prevention skills and knowledge post-training than males. CONCLUSIONS: Offering peer suicide gatekeeper training to students from the general college population may hold promise in suicide prevention efforts.

Family environment as a moderator of the association between anxiety and suicidal ideation.

The present study examined associations among anxiety symptoms, anxiety disorder diagnoses, perceptions of family support and conflict, and suicidal ideation (SI) in a clinical sample of psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents. Participants were 185 adolescents (72% female; 84% white, mean age=15.02years, SD=1.33) hospitalized on an acute psychiatric inpatient unit. Results indicated that anxiety disorders and symptoms were positively associated with SI, even after controlling for mood disorder diagnoses and sex. Moreover, this relationship was stronger among youth who reported lower (versus higher) levels of family support. Family conflict was positively associated with SI but did not moderate the relationship between anxiety and SI. Results suggest that family support may represent an important intervention target to decrease suicide risk among anxious youth. Integrating positive parenting techniques (e.g., attending to positive behaviors, providing praise, emotion coaching) and effective parent-child communication into treatment with anxious youth may help achieve this aim.