Overview

Untreated mental health problems can cause lasting harm to self-esteem, relationships, academics, productivity, and health. It is thus highly worrisome that only 18-36% of university students with significant mental health problems seek help. Many university campuses have responded to this mental health crisis by trying to increase students' mental health literacy (MHL), defined as "knowledge and beliefs about mental disorders which aid their recognition, management, or prevention''. Increasing MHL appears to increase knowledge about mental health services, but it does not increase actual treatment-seeking desire or action. One problem with this approach is that it falsely assumes that students struggling with their mental health will want to pursue services once they have learned more about mental disorders and the associated treatments available. However, most people with mental disorders do not initially recognize that they have a disorder and may dismiss information about mental disorders and mental health treatment as irrelevant. Feelings of shame are elevated in individuals with psychological disorders, and these feelings act as one of the strongest barriers to mental health treatment-seeking.Given the low rate of treatment-seeking on university campuses, research is needed to explore how best to facilitate mental health treatment seeking among distressed students, including those who may not self-identity as having a mental health problem. Research has yet to examine the potential role of self-compassion in relation to treatment-seeking behaviours. Self-compassion (SC) is conceptualized as responding to personal distress with gentleness and kindness in order to alleviate it, and it is negatively associated with shame. However, research has not yet explored whether the perceived benefits of SC in mitigating shame can affect mental health treatment-seeking outcomes. We propose that cultivating SC amongst psychologically distressed students will subsequently decrease shame, and thus, indirectly elevate willingness to seek mental health treatment. Thus, this study will examine the effects of a one-session SC workshop/intervention compared to a one-session MHL intervention on shame and mental health treatment-seeking. Participants will be distressed students recruited from the University of Waterloo, and will be randomly assigned to the SC intervention, MHL intervention, or control intervention.

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Undergraduate student at University of Waterloo with a SONA account
• Scored 8+ on Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K6; screener scale)

Exclusion Criteria:

• None