Assessment of college students' mental health (MH) and well-being (WB) is important for health promotion and for removing obstacles to academic performance. Many epidemiologic and psychometric studies considered different aspects of MH and WB in college students. However, to date they neglected a broad scientifically grounded simultaneous consideration of diagnostic categories, vulnerability and transdiagniostic factors (e.g. perfectionism, emotional dysregulation, rumination, self-criticism), and of protective factors (e.g. positivity, self-efficacy, values, self-acceptance). This is due to limits of the theories guiding the choice of the psychometric scales and to problems related to questionnaires length. There is a need for brief, stepwise, personalized screening tools, focused both on opportunities for personal improvements and on current problems, that can be self-administered through an electronic infrastructure and adjusted to focus on the main problems indicated.
Based on Conosci te stesso, this project aims to develop a composite psychometrically sound tool to screen WB, MH and distress among college students, starting from the cross-validation of a consistent set of scales to be proposed in an online interactive interview. The goals are to: 1) Select and validate filter questions and psychometric scales for the assessment of personal resources and WB, health behaviors and psychological distress among Sapienza students. 2) Design and implement a digital platform (website) allowing the self-administration of the questionnaires and data collection. 3) Explore the associations between the constructs assessed and academic performance indicators (e.g grades, regularity in the academic credits).
Besides improving knowledge on WB and distress, the results can contribute to an international project and to interventions to encourage students to enhance their personal resources and to use the external resources provided by the universities and by the health systems.
