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Depression Management as Lifestyle Management: Exploring Existing Practices and Perceptions Among College Students

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Sustainable Digital Communities (iConference 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 12051))

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Abstract

Research is limited on college students’ existing approaches to managing depression, which are important to understand before designing and recommending non-digital and digital tools. We conducted a mixed methods survey with 109 college students about their awareness of and interest in non-digital and digital tools, what tools they use, how they use them, and their perceived effectiveness. In general, students are aware of and interested in both non-digital and digital tools. Therefore, we cannot discount the utility of both non-digital and digital tools, even among high technology users. We found 78 participants use non-digital tools, such as paper, art, and checklists, and 80 participants reported using digital tools, such as social media, texts, and YouTube/vlogging. From students’ perspectives, depression management is lifestyle management. Thus, they often use a combination of tools for connection and support, catharsis and outlet, keeping busy and distraction, organization and planning, and emotion and thought analysis and regulation, and they perceive these tools to be at least somewhat effective in managing their depression. This research emphasizes the need to understand current practices and perceptions and can be used as a foundation for other researchers, clinicians, and educators as they continue to find ways to support college students with depression.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For the purposes of this research, depression refers to both self- and professionally-diagnosed depression.

  2. 2.

    Not every participant answered how they use these tools: 75 participants answered “how” regarding non-digital tool usage and 80 for digital tool usage. Participants could provide multiple reasons.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank iSchool Inclusion Institute (i3) Director Dr. Kayla Booth, i3 Assistant Director and our research advisor Dr. Elizabeth Eikey, and Michael Depew, as well as the 2017, 2018, and 2019 cohorts. This work was supported by the National Center for Research Resources, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, and the NIH (UL1 TR001414). It is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Jordan Dodson

  2. The College of Westchester, White Plains, NY, USA

    Naika Saint Preux

  3. Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA

    Jenni Thang

  4. University of California, San Diego, CA, USA

    Elizabeth V. Eikey

  5. The iSchool Inclusion Institute (i3), Pittsburgh, USA

    Jordan Dodson, Naika Saint Preux, Jenni Thang & Elizabeth V. Eikey

Authors
  1. Jordan Dodson
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  2. Naika Saint Preux
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  3. Jenni Thang
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  4. Elizabeth V. Eikey
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jordan Dodson .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway

    Anneli Sundqvist

  2. OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway

    Gerd Berget

  3. University of Boras, Boras, Sweden

    Jan Nolin

  4. OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway

    Kjell Ivar Skjerdingstad

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 2

Table 2. Participant demographics
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Dodson, J., Preux, N.S., Thang, J., Eikey, E.V. (2020). Depression Management as Lifestyle Management: Exploring Existing Practices and Perceptions Among College Students. In: Sundqvist, A., Berget, G., Nolin, J., Skjerdingstad, K. (eds) Sustainable Digital Communities. iConference 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12051. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43687-2_19

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43687-2_19

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