Assessing Intentions and Facilitators for College Student Mobile App Use for Mental Health

Background and Purpose: College students have high rates of depression and anxiety. Almost 50% of college students reported depression and nearly 60% reported experiencing anxiety. Unfortunately, the rate of students seeking help is surprisingly low.

The mobile app is an innovative way to treat mental health concerns among college students. Treatment delivered via a mobile app is effective in reducing depression and anxiety. Little research has been done examining how the technical features of mobile apps for mental health services are linked to an individuals intent to use the app. Research has shown that the technical features of mobile apps affect users' engagement.

Using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), this research aims to explore the relationship between technical aspects of a mobile app and college students intention to use a mobile app for mental health services. The UTAUT posits four constructs--performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI), and facilitating conditions (FC)—that are predictive of one’s intention to use technology. PE indicates the degree to which individuals believe the technology helps achieve their goals. EE indicates the degree to which individuals think the technology is easy to use. SI indicates the degree to which friends think individuals should use the technology. FC indicates the degree to which individuals believe the technology can remove the barriers to use.

Methods: Participants were 304 college students who completed the 2020-2021 Healthy Mind Survey. We conducted a multinomial logistic regression to explore the relationship between four constructs of UTAUT and college students' intention to use a mental health mobile app, controlling for gender and race/ethnicity.

App use intention is measured by “Would you be open to using an app for wellness or mental/emotional health?” with responses ranging from 1 = “yes”, 2 = “maybe” and 3 = “no”. PE was assessed by asking: “How helpful on average do you think wellness or mental/emotional health apps are for people your age who are having mental or emotional health problems?”, EE was assessed by asking: “Is the app well designed and easy to use”, SI was asked by asking: “Does the app has reviews from users” and “ Does the app have reviews from experts in the field”, and FC was assessed by four items: “The app has research supporting its benefits”, “The app has information about data privacy and storage policies”, “The cost of the app” and “The time commitment of the app seems manageable to me”. All responses are rated on a 5-point Likert scale, with higher scores indicating more importance.

Results: The results revealed that PE and EE are significantly associated with students’ app use intention, when controlling for race/ethnicity and gender. In other words, students are more likely to use a mobile app for mental health services if the app had the two above-mentioned characteristics.

Conclusions and Implications: A mobile app perceived as helpful and easy to use is attractive to college students and can be used to reduce their mental health concerns.