The University of Macau (UM) and New York University Shanghai (NYU) have jointly developed a mobile application for mental health intervention called “Step-by-Step” (SbS) and conducted the first randomised controlled trial on UM students to investigate its effectiveness, with the latest research results released at the local university on 26 March.
The results showed that SbS is “effective in alleviating depressive symptoms among Chinese university students in the short term and improving their psychological well-being in the long term”, pointing to a promising future for digital mental health intervention, according to a UM press release.
The so-called randomised controlled trial ran for one year with a total of 371 participants, while the entire intervention process lasted eight weeks, during which the effectiveness of the intervention was assessed on a weekly basis, according to the university.
Photo: UM
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