Articlegold2025

A pre–post study evaluating an online CBT-based intervention to improve academic performance in students with low mood

Suheir Awadalla · E Bethan Davies · Cris Glazebrook

1 citations0/0 files storedHumanities and Social Sciences Communications

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Digital Mental Health Interventions Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes Psychological Treatments and Assessments

Abstract

Abstract Online cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT)-based interventions have shown the potential to improve the mental health of university students. However, their impact on West Asian cultures and educational achievement has yet to be fully investigated. This study explores the feasibility, acceptability, and potential effectiveness of a self-directed, internet-delivered, cognitive–behavioural skills training programme (MoodGYM) in reducing depression and improving academic performance among university students in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This exploratory pre- and postintervention study with a historical control group recruited 50 students, having a GPA <2 and self-reporting at least one of two key depressive symptoms, from one UAE university. The results demonstrated that the total Hospital Depression and Anxiety Scale (HADS) depression score (HADS-D) decreased after the intervention (P = 0.004), and the proportion of participants scoring above the cutoff for depression (HADS-D ≥8) decreased from 77.2 to 27.3% (p < 0.001). There was also a significant reduction in HADS-anxiety scores (p < 0.001), and the proportion of participants above the cut-off for anxiety (HADS-A ≥8) decreased from 50% to 11.4% (p = 0.001). GPA improved significantly over time (p < 0.001, d = 1.3), and attendance warnings decreased (p = 0.008, d = 0.6). Most students (79.6%) evaluated MoodGYM as useful, and all students completed at least two MoodGYM modules. This study shows that MoodGYM, a web-based mental health promotion intervention, improves academic achievement in university students with depressive symptoms. Further research is needed to explore how MoodGYM can be best implemented within university settings.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 1 citations exist upstream.

References

2007G*Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences 1983The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale 2002The validity of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale 2012Psychological correlates of university students' academic performance: A systematic review and meta-analysis.2014The prevalence and correlates of depression, anxiety, and stress in a sample of college students 2012A systematic review of studies of depression prevalence in university students 2004Delivering interventions for depression by using the internet: randomised controlled trial 2014The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.