Developing and Evaluating Psychological Interventions for Higher Education Student Mental Health
A special issue of Behavioral Sciences (ISSN 2076-328X). This special issue belongs to the section "Child and Adolescent Psychiatry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 September 2026 | Viewed by 1101
Special Issue Editor
Interests: implementation science; student mental health; brief psychological interventions; digital approaches to mental health support
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The number of higher education students is growing, with more than half of all young people attending university in some parts of the world. Unfortunately, the rates of students experiencing mental health difficulties are also rising. Students are increasingly seen as a vulnerable group with respect to a range of mental health difficulties and suicidality. Alongside an increase in prevalence of mental health difficulties, we are also seeing an increase in the complexities of presentations. The increased awareness of the student mental health epidemic has put pressure on universities to respond despite a limited evidence base and resources to do so effectively.
Universities are working hard to support the mental health of their student populations, but they are limited in their capacity to do so because of an impoverished evidence base. There is a need for more theory-driven interventions that have been evaluated using robust methods within the sector. In this Special Issue, we wish to publish research aiming to address this gap. We are interested in any papers that are related to psychological interventions for higher education students; this includes research exploring potential intervention targets and mechanisms of change in relation to mental health outcomes, as well as studies exploring the feasibility, acceptability, effectiveness and/or implementation of psychological interventions for student mental health. We are also interested in research documenting the development of interventions. Eligible studies may use qualitative, quantitative or mixed methodologies. Studies may involve higher education students as a whole population or a subgroup of students.
Dr. Cassie Marie Hazell
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- student
- mental health
- interventions
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