Community belongingness during COVID-19 predicts anxiety and depression treatment change in college students

Abstract

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.

Keywords:

• community belongingness
• COVID-19
• university counseling center
• anxiety
• depression

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Declarations and Ethics Statements

Ethical Approval: We confirm that we have obtained ethical approval to conduct this study (VT IRB #21-303). The Virginia Tech Human Research Protection Program determined that the proposed activity is not research involving human subjects as defined by HHS and FDA regulations (26 March 2021).

Informed Consent: Due to the anonymized nature of this research and IRB exemption status, informed consent was not acquired. Any alterations to participant data have not distorted scholarly meaning.

Funding and Conflict of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose and received no financial support for this research.

Author contributions: Author T.C.M. conceptualized the idea for research, analyzed the data, drafted the initial manuscript, and was involved in editing and revisions. Author B.R. was responsible for data acquisition and management, statistical consultation, initial manuscript drafting, editing, and supervision. Authors C.C., H.K., and R.B. contributed to initial manuscript writing and editing. Authors R.B., T.H.O., L.C., and E.S. contributed to manuscript editing and provided supervision. All authors contributed to the revision process.

Acknowledgements: We would like to thank the counselors from Virginia Tech Cook Counseling Center for providing outstanding clinical services, especially during COVID-19.

Notes

1 All items of the CCAPS-34 are present in CCAPS-62 under the same subscales, thus making cross-comparisons easy and statistically feasible.