Background: Worsening mental health of students in higher education is a public policy concern and the impact of measures to reduce transmission of COVID-19 has heightened awareness of this issue. Preventing poor mental health and supporting positive mental wellbeing needs to be based on an evidence informed understanding what factors influence the mental health of students.Objectives: To identify factors associated with mental health of students in higher education.Methods: We undertook a systematic review of observational studies that measured factors associated with student mental wellbeing and poor mental health. Extensive searches were undertaken across five databases. We included studies undertaken in the UK and published within the last decade (2010–2020). Due to heterogeneity of factors, and diversity of outcomes used to measure wellbeing and poor mental health the findings were analysed and described narratively.Findings: We included 31 studies, most of which were cross sectional in design. Those factors most strongly and consistently associated with increased risk of developing poor mental health included students with experiences of trauma in childhood, those that identify as LGBTQ and students with autism. Factors that promote wellbeing include developing strong and supportive social networks. Students who are prepared and able to adjust to the changes that moving into higher education presents also experience better mental health. Some behaviours that are associated with poor mental health include lack of engagement both with learning and leisure activities and poor mental health literacy.Conclusion: Improved knowledge of factors associated with poor mental health and also those that increase mental wellbeing can provide a foundation for designing strategies and specific interventions that can prevent poor mental health and ensuring targeted support is available for students at increased risk.

This article reports on a systematic review to assess the efficacy and clinical effectiveness of group analysis and analytic/dynamic (A/D) group psychotherapy. Systematic literature searches were undertaken; 34 primary studies and 19 reviews met the inclusion criteria and their data was extracted. Of the primary studies, the randomized controlled trials provided evidence for the efficacy and clinical effectiveness of group therapy approaches in a range of clinical problems, but not for specific benefits of any particular theoretical approach. The controlled studies and observational studies gave support for the use of group psychotherapy in a variety of conditions. The review of reviews confirms that group therapies in general are more effective than wait list or standard care controls. Methodological challenges encountered and recommendations for further research are presented, along with a more detailed discussion of the implications of the review for the research community.

Background: Online peer support networks are a growing area of mental health support for offering social connection, identity, and support. However, it has been reported that not all individuals have a positive experience on such networks. The potential for adverse events within a moderated online peer support network is a new area of research exploration. Objective: The objective of the study was to determine if use of an online moderated peer networks leads to adverse events for users. Methods: Four biannual online surveys (October 2014 to March 2016) were conducted by a large national UK mental health charity, with users of their online peer support network exploring personal safety, moderation, experiences on the site, and how the site could be improved. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis by 2 independent researchers using a priori themes: negative experiences of moderation, social exclusion, contagion, negative interactions with other users, online relationships, co-rumination and collusion, and other. Results: In total, 2353 survey responses were logged with 197 (8.37%) documenting an adverse event of negative experience. A dominant theme of negative experiences of moderation emerged (73/197, 37.1%) with evidence of social exclusion (50/197, 25.4%). Reading user posts was shown to be a cause of worry and distress for a few users, and analysis highlighted several instances of depressogenic and emotional contagion as well as some limited evidence of behavioral contagion (46/197, 23.4%). Very limited evidence of co-rumination (1/197, 0.5%) and no evidence of collusion were identified. Conclusions: Evidence of adverse events was identified at low levels in the sample of respondents, although we have no comparison data to indicate if levels are low compared with comparable platforms. Not all users of online peer support networks find them wholly beneficial. Research must explore what works for whom. The next stage of service development should consider which users may be likely to receive no benefit, or even deteriorate, as a result of using the service.

High rates of mental health problems are a growing concern in Czech higher education, negatively impacting students’ performance and wellbeing. Despite the serious nature of poor mental health, students often do not seek help because of negative attitudes and shame over mental health problems. Recent mental health research reports self-compassion is strongly associated with better mental health and reduced shame. However, relationships between those constructs remain to be evaluated among Czech students. This study aims to appraise the relationships between mental health problems, negative mental health attitudes, mental health shame, and self-compassion in this population. An opportunity sample of 119 psychology students from a Czech university completed questionnaires regarding these constructs. Correlation, regression, and path analyses were conducted. Mental health problems were positively associated with negative mental health attitudes and shame, and negatively associated with self-compassion. Self-compassion negatively predicted mental health problems, while negative attitudes and shame did not. Last, self-compassion fully mediated the negative attitudes-mental health problems relationship, and partially mediated the shame-mental health problems relationship. Findings suggest self-compassion is essential for mental health in Czech students and associated with negative mental health attitudes and mental health shame. Czech universities can benefit from incorporating self-compassion training into their curricula to protect students’ mental health.

Speech and language play an essential role in automatically assessing several psychotherapeutic qualities. These automation procedures require translating the manual rating qualities to speech and language features that accurately capture the assessed psychotherapeutic quality. Speech features can be determined by analysing recordings of psychotherapeutic conversations (acoustics), while language-based analyses rely on the transcriptions of such psychotherapeutic conversations (linguistics). Guided self-help is a psychotherapeutic intervention that mainly relay on therapeutic competency of practitioners. This paper investigates the feasibility of automatically analysing guided self-help sessions for mild-to-moderate anxiety to detect and predict practitioner competence. This analysis is performed on sessions drawn from a patient preference randomised controlled trial using actual patient-practitioner conversations manually rated using a valid and reliable measure of competency. The results show the efficacy and potential of automatically detecting practitioners’ competence using a system based on acoustic and linguistic features extracted from transcripts generated by an automatic speech recogniser. Feature extraction, feature selection and classification or regression have been implemented as blocks of the prediction model. The Lasso regression model achieved the best prediction results with an R of 0.92 and lower error rates with an MAE of 1.66 and RMSE of 2.25.