Text messaging as a means to lowering barriers to help-seeking in students with depression

Joyce, David and Weibelzahl, Stephan (2006) Text messaging as a means to lowering barriers to help-seeking in students with depression. In: International Association for Development of Information Society (IADIS) International Conference e-Society 2006, 13–16 July 2006, Dublin.

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Abstract

Whilst depression is one of the most common ailments to afflict adolescents and students, there is reluctance amongst sufferers to present for treatment. Student counseling services are widespread throughout the educational environment, however only 20% of sufferers seek help, leaving 80% to suffer unaided and in isolation. Certain barriers to help seeking have been identified in the research literature, and in this paper we examine how text messaging can be harnessed to encourage sufferers to overcome these barriers and seek help, by initiating dialogue and providing timely exhortations (via a student’s mobile phone) to avail of counseling services. To prevent students feeling targeted, these messages form part of a once-weekly stream of text messages from college to student, relating to finance, sports, exams etc.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Subjects:	Q Science > QA Mathematics > Electronic computers. Computer science T Technology > T Technology (General) > Information Technology > Electronic computers. Computer science
Divisions:	School of Computing > Staff Research and Publications
Depositing User:	Caoimhe Ní Mhaicín
Date Deposited:	21 Mar 2014 12:41
Last Modified:	27 Mar 2014 15:55
URI:	https://norma.ncirl.ie/id/eprint/1052

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