Abstract

Objective Community belongingness has been shown to be related to mental health outcomes in college students; however, little work has evaluated whether community belongingness impacts treatment change, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, when social isolation and mental health concerns are exacerbated. Accordingly, the current study evaluated community belongingness as a predictor of treatment change for anxiety and depression in a university counseling center. Method: Participants included 516 young adults with clinical levels of anxiety or depression who attended at least two individual therapy sessions at a university counseling center during fall 2020. Participants completed broad measures of psychosocial functioning at each session. Results: Paired-samples t-tests indicated that students demonstrated significant decreases in anxiety and depression after just one session. Linear stepwise regressions revealed that community belongingness was a significant predictor of symptom improvement for both anxiety and depression. Conclusion: These results suggest improving community belongingness on college campuses may be a way to buffer mental health and improve treatment outcomes for students seeking psychological services. Specific clinical and educational recommendations for ways to improve community belongingness are discussed.

摘要

目的社区归属感已被证明与大学生的心理健康结果相关；然而，很少有工作评估社区归属感是否会影响治疗变化，特别是在 COVID-19 大流行期间，此时社会孤立和心理健康问题加剧。因此，当前的研究评估了社区归属感作为大学咨询中心焦虑和抑郁治疗变化的预测因素。方法：参与者包括 516 名患有临床焦虑或抑郁水平的年轻人，他们于 2020 年秋季在大学咨询中心至少参加了两次个体治疗课程。参与者在每次课程中完成了广泛的心理社会功能测量。结果：配对样本t检验表明，仅一堂课后，学生的焦虑和抑郁症状就显着减少。线性逐步回归显示，社区归属感是焦虑和抑郁症状改善的重要预测因素。结论：这些结果表明，改善大学校园的社区归属感可能是缓冲心理健康并改善寻求心理服务的学生的治疗结果的一种方法。讨论了有关改善社区归属感的具体临床和教育建议。