Online self-help: Developing a student-focused website for depression

Abstract

Many depressed people, young men in particular, do not seek professional help. This social constructionist action research project aimed to construct a comprehensive self-help website for students. Its goal was to give a multi-layered (‘thick’) account of depression to website users offering empowering perspectives and strategies while challenging barriers to help-seeking. Thirteen student interviewees, representing diverse demographics and depression experiences, attended semi-structured interviews to elicit ‘coping’ narratives. Ten of them then formed an ongoing e-mail focus group. An evaluative action research spiral was used to analyse and act upon public health guidelines, student interviews and student focus group commentary. Triangulation was provided via the specifications and ongoing feedback from the other project stakeholders. These were the funding charity steering group (including heads of university counselling services); the university providing programme/ethical approval; and the expert group offering clinical validation. The final site at www.studentdepression.org has nearly 100 pages of information and self-help resources cross-referenced with personal narratives. It provides a rich, complex account of how depression may be tackled and resisted. Both student and expert groups were impressed with final site quality and usefulness. Collaborative development with user-group representatives is likely to have produced a far richer, more accessible and more comprehensive resource than counsellor authorship alone.1

¹Formerly at the Counselling Service, Royal Holloway University of London, UK.

Keywords:

• Depression
• self-help
• website
• students
• social constructionism
• action research

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the following key collaborators in the research aspects of the project: The student consultants who gave so generously of their experiences and opinions; research assistant, Gillian Sedgwick, who conducted excellent student interviews and provided sensitive supervisory support to the consultant student group; the project steering group: Brig Michael Lord of the Charlie Waller Memorial Trust; Dr Rob Waller (psychiatrist) formerly of Leeds University; and Nigel Humphrys, Charlotte Halvorsen and Ken Ewings of the Heads of University Counselling Services group of AUCC; the expert panel: Prof Michael Berger (convenor), emeritus professor of clinical psychology, University of London, chartered clinical psychologist; Dr Alex Doig, consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist, clinical lead for adolescent team in NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, Hounslow; Dr Jacquie Hetherton, chartered clinical psychologist, lecturer and clinical tutor in clinical psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London; and Dr Richard Moore, clinical psychologist, Dept of Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, specialising in cognitive therapy for depression and author of a number of journal articles and a book about cognitive therapy for depression. Ethical approval was provided by the programme approval board of the Metanoia Institute/Middlesex University Practitioner Doctoral programme.

Notes

¹Formerly at the Counselling Service, Royal Holloway University of London, UK.