Psychoeducation

Psychoeducation refers to workshops and resources that teach skills that enable students or staff to manage their mental health or certain aspects of university life. These can be broadly themed such as managing wellbeing, or specifically tailored to certain difficulties such as managing sleep, alcohol problems, or anxiety. 

Psychoeducation workshops can also include themes that equip attendees with the skills to help others. These may vary widely, from courses on signposting and mental health first aid to courses specially tailored to staff working with specific demographics such as those living with autism, for example. Information, guidance and toolkits raise awareness, signpost and provide essential information for managing mental health difficulties

They can be useful preventative interventions and help to raise awareness, reduce stigma and signpost to other services.

Psychoeducation is often preventative and a good first point of contact for engaging people in ways that they can find support. Psychoeducation workshops provide a baseline of information and guidance for the general population of students. They can also be targeted to specific students with certain needs or at specific points in their student journey. 

Psychoeducation workshops can be a way of reaching students that would not traditionally engage with support services as they can be framed as wellbeing or learning support workshops. In addition, workshops can be beneficial by providing an added social support for the student. Conversely, psychoeducational resources that can be accessed online or independently may be preferred as students can access them anonymously and in their own time. It is recommended that psychoeducation resources are put together by a range of experts in co-production with students to ensure better student engagement.

The literature shows that there is some causal of medium strength. The majority of these studies have a mixed impact. This means that there is a combination of studies with significant and non-significant results, whether positive or negative. There are 5 causal studies from the UK supporting the effectiveness of psychoeducation interventions. This means that we can say that there is medium evidence to suggest that this intervention effectively supports student mental health.

Currently, we don’t have enough evidence on the efficacy of this intervention to make statements about which features are important. 

For more guidance, please see the Mental Health Charter under the “Live” domain. Other examples of interventions of this type can be found in our case studies [LINK TBC].

More evidence is needed on specific targeted groups. Most of the studies in the literature are limited to undergraduate students. There is no evidence on student transitioning into university and a very small number of studies on postgraduates. There is a small amount of studies on specific target groups such as female learners and LGBTQA learners. and Almost all evidence reports on UG. No pre-entry or PG active psychoeducational interventions.

While there is a limited number of studies measuring attainment at university, there are no studies that measure any other student outcomes or that measure both student outcomes and mental health outcomes. 

As the majority of studies are from outside the UK, more studies with larger sample sizes in UK universities are needed to inform the effectiveness of these interventions.

The majority of studies in the existing literature are from outside the UK.

Causal Studies

Gaffney, H., Mansell, W., Edwards, R. and Wright, J., (2014) Manage Your Life Online (MYLO): a pilot trial of a conversational computer-based intervention for problem solving in a student sample. Behavioural and cognitive psychotherapy, 42(6), 731-746.

Merritt, R.K., Price, J.R., Mollison, J. and Geddes, J.R., (2007) A cluster randomized controlled trial to assess the effectiveness of an intervention to educate students about depression. Psychological Medicine, 37(3), 363-372.

Short, E., Kinman, G. and Baker, S., (2010) Evaluating the impact of a peer coaching intervention on wellbeing amongst psychology undergraduate students. International Coaching Psychology Review, 5(1), 27-35.

Penton-Voak, I.S., Bate, H., Lewis, G. and Munafo, M.R., (2012) Effects of emotion perception training on mood in undergraduate students: randomised controlled trial. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 201(1), 71-72.

Ponzo, S., Morelli, D., Kawadler, J.M., Hemmings, N.R., Bird, G. and Plans, D., (2020) Efficacy of the digital therapeutic mobile app biobase to reduce stress and improve mental wellbeing among university students: randomized controlled trial. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 8(4), p.e17767.

Information and Guidance

Hughes, G. & Spanner, L. (2019). The University Mental Health Charter. Leeds: Student Minds.