Literature Review blog post #4

Citation

Lattie, Emily G., et al. “Technology and College Student Mental Health: Challenges and Opportunities.” Frontiers in Psychiatry, vol. 10, 2019, doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00246.

Summary

In this work, the authors discuss how technology can be both beneficial and negative to college students. For starters, researchers have seen a drastic increase in the number of mental health diagnoses in the past few years. Because of this increase, many colleges are unable to meet the demand which makes them unable to help their students. One reason they looked at that could explain this increase is the use of technology use. It has changed how people communicate which could lead some students to feel left out leading to an effect on their mental health. Additionally, although this may affect their mental health, the researchers also discussed how technology could be positive in helping mental health problems. It could replace the need to wait for an appointment at an on campus clinician. But, many clinicians are not using it because they fear there are many privacy issues to this method and would prefer meeting with their students in person. 

Author(s) 

There are three authors for this work. The first author, Emily Lattie, went to the University of Miami to study Clinical Health Psychology. She has also done an extensive amount of psychological research, her latest being at Northwestern University at the Center for Behavioral Intervention Technologies. Next, is Sara Ketchen Lipson, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Health Law Policy and Management at the Boston University School of Public Health. She has also done extensive research on addressing mental health in college students. Lastly, is Daniel Eisenberg who currently works at the University of Michigan and does research on how to improve the mental health of young students. 

Key terms 

• Technology-enabled mental health services: Online or phone apps that offer the possibility to expand treatment options and help reduce the barriers for students who are unable to make it into the counseling centers. 
• Privacy: a common concern for clinicians which leads them to not use the technology-based mental health services. They fear that their students won’t be protected and choose to not provide these resources because of it. 

Three Quotes

“In recent years, there has been an increase in reported symptoms of mental illnesses in college student populations. A large, epidemiological study recently demonstrated that mental health diagnoses have risen from 22% to 36% among college student respondents over the last 10 years (3). In a survey of college counseling center directors, more than 95% reported that the number of students with significant psychological problems was a growing concern on their campus (4). Across the country, more and more college students appear to be suffering” (Lattie EG, Lipson SK and Eisenberg D 1).

“There are a number of challenges and opportunities for college student mental health afforded by personal computing technologies such as smartphones. We are living in a time of unprecedented social connection and access to educational resources. Some may argue that we are simultaneously living in a time of unprecedented awareness of social exclusion and information overload. This has been made apparent by the emergence of ‘fear of missing out’ or FoMO, which was first discussed by a marketing strategist (16), and since has become the subject of several empirical investigations on mental health and social media use (17–19)”(Lattie EG, Lipson SK and Eisenberg D 2). 

“While students could theoretically access these types of programs without involvement from their campus community, counseling centers are unlikely to see reductions in their everincreasing workload without coordinated efforts to educate students on, and direct them to, technology-enabled programs. Because college counseling centers across the United States are frequently understaffed, have limited budgets, and operate on waitlists for much of the year (8), it may be in their best interest to support the incorporation of technology-enabled mental health programs into routine practice, as a supplement to their core services” (Lattie EG, Lipson SK and Eisenberg D 3).

Value

This material helps me explore my research because it gives a potential reason for why mental health has drastically increased. Also, it also gives a possible solution on how to improve mental health services. Although many clinicians do not like using technology for treatment, it may be the best next option to help decrease the rise in numbers.