mHealth application called CBCT Sessions to Treat and Reduce Elevated Stress among Students (C-STRESS).

NIH RePORTER · NIH · R44 · $55,000 · view on reporter.nih.gov ↗

Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Psychological distress among college students is increasing and more than 50% of U.S. college students report significant symptoms of depression, anxiety or stress.1 Many of these students do not receive professional help due to the long waiting time and lack of resources for mental health services at universities. As a result, they may experience poor performance in college, drop out of college, or even die of suicide. It is thus, crucial to provide new interventions that are aligned with the needs of college students. C-STRESS addresses the mental health needs of college students with an innovative mobile application to deliver Cognitively-Based Compassion Training (CBCT®), a mind-training intervention that builds skills of attention, mindfulness, and traditional cognitive behavioral techniques, actualized through meditation, to cultivate compassion for self and others. The ultimate goal of C-STRESS is to revolutionize the delivery of CBCT and strengthen college students’ cognitive resilience to stress and improve mental health outcomes. C-STRESS, a potential digital treatment intervention for depressive symptoms, incorporates 3 key innovative components: 1. Micro-learning content, 2. Audiovisual library, and 3. Virtual drop-ins, allowing college students with on-demand access to the structured, research-based CBCT program, CBCT meditation recordings, and a virtual room to interact with fellow CBCT practitioners and a CBCT instructor. We hypothesize that depressed college students who receive C-STRESS will have significant decreases in depressive symptoms, anxiety, and stress at 10 and 16 weeks. !

Key facts

NIH application ID
10045807
Project number
3R44MH121219-01S1
Recipient
BENTEN TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
Principal Investigator
Tony Xuyen Ma
Activity code
R44
Funding institute
NIH
Fiscal year
2020
Award amount
$55,000
Award type
3
Project period
2019-08-01 → 2020-05-31