TUESDAY, May 12, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- A smartphone app with cognitive-behavioral therapy-guided self-help (D-CBTgsh) helps college students with common mental health issues, according to a study published online May 7 in Nature Human Behavior.
Michelle G. Newman, from Pennsylvania State University in University Park, and colleagues randomly assigned 6,205 college students with clinical levels or a high risk for anxiety, depression, and/or eating disorders based on college-level screening (39,194 assessed at 26 U.S. universities) to D-CBTgsh or referral to college-provided care groups.
The researchers found that screening+D-CBTgsh reduced prevalence of any mental disorder (primary outcome) at six weeks (odds ratio [OR], 0.80), six months (OR, 0.77), and two years (OR, 0.82). In the screening+D-CBTgsh group, services uptake was greater versus the screening+referral group (74.4 versus 30.2 percent) at six months (OR, 6.72) and two years (OR, 1.83), including for minoritized groups. Screening+D-CBTgsh was also associated with improvements in dimensional outcomes of generalized anxiety, social anxiety, depression, eating disorder symptoms, and mental health functioning.
"Many students wait until they reach a crisis point to reach out to the counseling center," senior author Ellen Fitzsimmons-Craft, Ph.D., from Washington University in St. Louis, said in a statement. "By pairing screening with immediate access to the app, students have an opportunity to take a more proactive approach to their mental health."
One author disclosed ties to the digital mental health provider industry.
