This study aims to explore the effect of University Counseling Center (UCC) treatment in a nationally representative sample of 101,354 college students with suicide risk variables (i.e. recent suicidal ideation (SI), recent SI and history of suicide attempts (SA), history of SA) as compared to those without suicide risk seeking services from 160 UCCs. Time Varying Effects Modeling was used to assess changes in distress level and SI over the course of up to 20 sessions of treatment among students with the aforementioned risk variables compared to those without. Reductions in distress and SI were observed in all students with the most significant change seen in the first five sessions. Students with recent SI and no history of attempts seem to achieve comparable amount of improvement to students without suicide risks. Presence of suicide attempt history appears to limit the prognosis. These results entail that students with a history of SA whose levels of risk and chronicity of symptoms may require more treatment and be better managed with alternative forms of treatment.

We examined trends in depression among 17-year-olds to understand the contribution of incoming students to the demand for collegiate mental health services. Seventeen-year-olds (N = 32,325) from the National Surveys on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) for 2008 to 2019 were included. The proportion of 17-year- olds reporting depression during their lifetime, during the past year, or for the first time in the past year were determined for each year. Rates of depression remained similar from 2008 to 2012 (lifetime, 17%; current year, 11%; incident cases, 5%) followed by the onset of a significantly growing wave, almost doubling by 2019, reaching 30% (lifetime), 21% (current year) and 9% (incident cases). This wave shows that depression emerges before college for a high proportion of youth. Collegiate mental health must focus on this wave among arriving students, in addition to programs for the much smaller new incidence of depression that emerges during college.

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.

OBJECTIVE:The purpose of the present study was to test a 1-hour peer suicide gatekeeper training for students from the broad college community in the context of an open pilot trial.METHOD:Two-hundred and thirty-one college students were recruited university-wide, Mage  = 20.7, 65.4% female, and completed a peer suicide prevention gatekeeping training program. Assessments were completed at pre-training and post-training as well as 3-month follow-up.RESULTS:This brief peer suicide gatekeeper training program was associated with increases in suicide prevention knowledge. It was also associated with an increase in the number of students who identified suicidal youth and made mental health referrals, as well as total number of referrals made, over the course of three months. Females reported greater improvement in suicide prevention skills and knowledge post-training than males.CONCLUSIONS:Offering peer suicide gatekeeper training to students from the general college population may hold promise in suicide prevention efforts.

The present study examined associations among anxiety symptoms, anxiety disorder diagnoses, perceptions of family support and conflict, and suicidal ideation (SI) in a clinical sample of psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents. Participants were 185 adolescents (72% female; 84% white, mean age=15.02years, SD=1.33) hospitalized on an acute psychiatric inpatient unit. Results indicated that anxiety disorders and symptoms were positively associated with SI, even after controlling for mood disorder diagnoses and sex. Moreover, this relationship was stronger among youth who reported lower (versus higher) levels of family support. Family conflict was positively associated with SI but did not moderate the relationship between anxiety and SI. Results suggest that family support may represent an important intervention target to decrease suicide risk among anxious youth. Integrating positive parenting techniques (e.g., attending to positive behaviors, providing praise, emotion coaching) and effective parent-child communication into treatment with anxious youth may help achieve this aim.

Recent studies suggest that a ruminative response style may contribute to the development and maintenance of Bulimia nervosa. However it is not clear what factors may contribute to the relationship between rumination and BN. One factor may be self-control, as studies suggest that BN symptomatology relates to deficits in self-control. In the present study, we hypothesized that the association between rumination and BN symptomatology would be the strongest among individuals with lower self-control relative to those with higher self-control. Participants were 353 students at a large university. Participants completed measures of self-control, rumination, and eating disorder symptomology as part of an online study. A hierarchical regression supported an interaction between rumination and self-control predicting bulimic symptomatology, controlling for BMI. Individuals with higher levels of rumination presented more bulimic symptoms if they also had lower levels of self-control, supporting our hypothesis. Based on these findings, assessing rumination in conjunction with self-control among individuals who present with eating concerns may help to direct treatment. Additionally, clinical interventions increasing self-control may also alleviate some BN symptoms in ruminators.

This study examined whether perceived family support and conflict moderate the relationship between conduct disorder (CD) and suicide attempts (SAs) in a sample of 185 psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents, ages 13 to 18, and their parents. Data were collected using the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School Aged Children (K-SADS-PL), the Survey of Children's Social Support Scale-Short Version, and the Conflict Behavior Questionnaire. Binary logistic regression and simple slope analyses were conducted to test study hypotheses. Results suggest that perceptions of family support, but not conflict, moderate the association between CD and SAs. Specifically, adolescents diagnosed with CD were found to be at heightened risk for an SA if they reported lower family support. These results suggest that clinicians who treat adolescents with CD should assess for perceptions of family support. Incorporating family work into treatment could help to prevent SAs.

Many episodes of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) are reportedly performed for the purpose of feeling generation; however, little is known about the pathways through which such behavior emerges. To address this knowledge gap, we examined the relations among childhood abuse, self-reported feelings of dissociation and emptiness, and the occurrence of NSSI. Eighty-six adolescents were included in this study and completed self-report measures of each construct. The results support a model in which dissociation and emptiness separately mediate the relation between childhood emotional abuse and the occurrence of NSSI. Moreover, as hypothesized, emotional abuse, dissociation, and emptiness all are significantly associated with the intrapersonal positive reinforcement function of NSSI (i.e., NSSI for feeling generation) but are not associated with the other 3 previously identified functions of NSSI. These results provide preliminary information about how NSSI may arise in some cases and suggest that treatment components aimed at teaching non-injurious strategies for generating positive feelings/affect may decrease the occurrence of NSSI.