Browsing by Author "Anttila, Maria"

Objective of the study. Psychological distress and psychological problems are common among university students. Web-based treatments offer a possible efficient and low-cost solution for supporting university students´ well-being. Acceptance and commitment therapy is a cognitive-behavioural approach, which by promoting mindfulness and acceptance skills and values-work aims to develop psychological flexibility, that is, ability to stay in contact with the present moment and persist or change in behaviour in the service of chosen values. There is already a considerable evidence-base of the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy, also delivered in web-based format, in alleviating distress, depression and anxiety and improving well-being of university students. The aim of this study is to further investigate the potential of acceptance and commitment therapy in improving university students´ psychological flexibility and well-being. The purpose was especially to explore the effects of a web-based acceptance and commitment therapy on the sub-processes of psychological flexibility and on well-being among different types of student groups. Methods. The data was collected from the web-based course Towards better studying provided by University of Helsinki in 2018. In the course the students worked with a web-based acceptance and commitment therapy program designed to alleviate stress and composed also reflective writing assignments of their process. The study sample (N=10) consisted of one group of students scoring high and another group of scoring low in psychological flexibility in the quantitative measurement of psychological flexibility at the beginning of the course. The data consisted of the writing assignments composed by the students. Based on this data four different profiles where identified that represented the students´ psychological flexibility and well-being at the beginning of the course. Both, the students scoring low as well as the students scoring high in psychological flexibility where divided into two sub-groups based on qualitative data. The effects of the course overall as well as the effects among the four different student profiles on psychological flexibility and well-being where investigated by using qualitative content analysis. Results and conclusions. Web-based acceptance and commitment therapy had remarkable positive effects on university students´ psychological flexibility and well-being but the effects differed to a great extent among different student profiles. Also, the students´ psychological flexibility at the beginning of the course looked somewhat different from the perspectives of quantitative measurement on one hand and qualitative measurement on the other.