Nearly half of all college students have a diagnosable mental health problem. College counseling centers (CCCs) are faced with increasing demands for services from Universities, students, and parents to meet the treatment needs of their students, in the context of increasingly severe cases and declining resources. Innovative, cost effective solutions are needed that can improve treatment effectiveness with a range of presenting problems while reducing counselor workloads.~The current project seeks to meet these needs by recruiting participants at several CCCs throughout the country to test a web-based guided self-help version of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, an evidence-based transdiagnostic therapy that has been found to effectively treat a range of mental health problems by targeting experiential avoidance, the tendency to avoid unwanted emotions and negative thoughts. An ACT program would provide a means of implementing effective treatment for the range of problems encountered in the CCC setting, while the online guided self-help format would reduce counselors' workload for each client, improving cost effectiveness and reducing waiting lists. This product would both treat students through a series of self-help modules and train CCC counselors in how to implement the guided self-help ACT intervention.~For the current phase (Phase I) of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant, three self-help modules (mindfulness, acceptance of difficult thoughts and feelings, and values exploration) have been developed, as well as a counselor portal to review students' use of the program and to receive training on implementing ACT guided self-help. The current study is a pre-post feasibility trial with at least 20 counselors and 60 clients (3 student clients per CCC counselor) from different CCCs throughout the country. The study is an open trial in which all counselors and clients will use the program and complete assessments and pre and post. The study will examine the initial feasibility, efficacy and acceptability of the program with both students and counselors. These findings will inform the development of a final commercial program to be marketed to CCCs.
College counseling centers (CCCs) are being faced with increasing demands for services to meet the treatment needs of their students, in the context of increasingly severe cases and declining resources. Innovative, cost effective solutions are needed.~The proposed project seeks to meet these needs by testing a web-based guided self-help version of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), an evidence-based transdiagnostic therapy found to effectively treat a range of psychological problems. An ACT program would provide a means of implementing effective treatment for the range of problems in the CCC setting, while the guided self-help format would reduce counselors' workload, improving cost-effectiveness and reducing waiting lists. This would both treat students and train counselors in how to implement the ACT intervention. Three self-help lessons have been developed, as well as a counselor portal to review students' use of the program and to receive training on implementing ACT guided self-help.~The study is a pre-post, open(i.e., non-randomized) feasibility trial with 20 counselors and 60 clients from multiple CCCs throughout the country.