Development of an Internet Intervention to Promote Wellbeing in College Students
Abstract
Objective: While tertiary students commonly experience distress that substantially impacts functioning and performance, few seek help. Innovative strategies are needed to promote wellbeing and address this distress. The current article describes the development, acceptability testing, and use of an Internet intervention to promote student wellbeing and resilience-thedesk. Method: Acceptability and useability of the program were evaluated by user analytics and focus groups. Results: In the first 3.5years, 118,000 individuals accessed the website and had 163,000 sessions averaging 5.3min and 6.9 accessed pages. Users' wellbeing scores were positively skewed, suggesting that the engaged content has broad relevance. While the percentage of people leaving the site after viewing the homepage was considered acceptable at 50%, there is significant room to improve engagement. Responses from consumer focus groups suggested high acceptability, perceived usability, and likely utility. Concerns included data security and, for international students, the need for greater direction on program use. Conclusions: While further research is needed to evaluate the effects of thedesk on wellbeing and distress, the current results suggest that it provides highly accessible support that is well accepted by most tertiary students and has the potential for use as a stand-alone intervention or, adjunctively, to increase the impact of other student support.
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Overall, 11 studies did not report the recruitment and/or selection process of study participants.
“Overall, 11 studies did not report the recruitment and/or selection process of study participants [30-40].”
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- Authors
- Stallman, H. M., & Kavanagh, D. J.
- Affiliations
- The University of Queensland (AU)
- Queensland University of Technology (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Stallman, Helen M
- Venue
- Australian Psychologist
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2018-02-01
- Volume
- 53
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 60-67
- ISSN
- 0005-0067 (ISSN-L)
- 1742-9544
- OpenAlex
- W2509683881
- Cited by
- 27
- References
- 18
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 4.63
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- Australian Psychologist (publishedVersion)
- UniSA Research Outputs Repository (University of South Australia) (submittedVersion)
- Faculty of Health; Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Student Stress and Coping
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction
- Keywords
- online intervention, student well-being, university students, resilience, student distress, help-seeking, acceptability, usability, user engagement, data security, international students, student support
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