# Designing a Mobile App to Support Academic Success for Student Veterans

> **NIH VA I21** · EDITH NOURSE  ROGERS MEMORIAL VETERANS HOSPITAL · 2024 · —

## Abstract

Compared to civilian students in higher education, student Veterans have high rates of mental health
disorders (PTSD: 40% vs. 9% and Depression: 24% vs 12.1%). As a result, Veterans with mental health disorders
can be more likely to experience academic issues, such as lower enrollment rates and slower degree attainment
on average. In addition, student Veterans with mental health disorders can experience substantial challenges
with the already-difficult transition to the student role, with difficulties related to education planning, academic
skills, and mental health management. Though many student Veterans could benefit from programming
embedded in supported education interventions, current in-person VA supported education treatments are often
difficult to access - or not available locally - for these Veterans. In addition, there is no widely available, VA-
specific online or mobile-app based resource for students, which is a substantial gap in resources for student
Veterans.
 The goal of this SPiRE project is to develop and evaluate a comprehensive mobile app for student
Veterans with mental health disorders. This intervention will use the principles of Veteran supported education
research and manualized treatments to develop a personalized academic success app, VetEd, to address a variety
of academic and psychiatric symptom-related educational barriers for student Veterans. Specifically, VetEd will
provide a resource to (1) orient student Veterans with mental health disorders to successfully transition to the
role of student as defined by their self-created educational roadmap, which will include helping students
acquire (2) academic skills, (3) mental health management skills, and (4) up-to-date information on psychiatric,
academic, and financial resources to help them successfully meet higher-education expectations.
 The proposed SPiRE will involve three aims: 1) Developing a Veteran-centered educational support app
by conducting three focus groups (n= 21) with student Veterans with mental health disorders to identify their
perceived academic needs, app preferences, and evaluate Veteran-centered content; 2) Testing and iteratively
revising the VetEd app (n =15) by assessing app software, content, human-computer interface, usability,
satisfaction data, and preliminary exploration of changes in educational functioning (course activity completion,
academic self-efficacy, and retention; and 3) Completing final revisions of the VetEd app for a future grant
application of a larger RCT. This pilot project is significant and innovative in three key respects: (1) it extends
services based in previous, effective supported education research to address both psychiatric and academic
concerns for Veterans with mental health disorders; (2) is potentially cost-effective and easy to disseminate
nationally; and (3) focuses on improving Veterans’ academic functioning and quality of life is substantially
different than current VA mobile app offerings. Results f...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10640978
- **Project number:** 5I21RX003897-02
- **Recipient organization:** EDITH NOURSE  ROGERS MEMORIAL VETERANS HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** Erin Reilly
- **Activity code:** I21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** VA
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** —
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-07-01 → 2024-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10640978

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10640978, Designing a Mobile App to Support Academic Success for Student Veterans (5I21RX003897-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10640978. Licensed CC0.

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