Pilot Evaluation of Digital Peer-Support Intervention for College Students

Overview

This pilot study aims to explore the feasibility, acceptability, usability, and preliminary efficacy of the Be There Certificate (BTC) program, a digital mental health literacy and peer support intervention among college students living in shared housing. This study addresses the growing need for scalable, skills-based mental health interventions that empower young adults to support one another in their everyday environments. In particular, the study seeks to understand whether students can complete and engage with the BTC content and how they apply these skills in real-life peer interactions. Through quantitative and qualitative methods, the study will examine changes in mental health knowledge, attitudes, and peer-support behaviors among students who complete the BTC program, and explore the lived experiences of those who provided and those who received support post-intervention

This study will use a mixed-methods, cluster-randomized, waitlist-controlled pilot trial design. Shared college housing units will be randomized to either the intervention arm, which will immediately complete the BTC program, or to a waitlist control arm, which will receive BTC access after the final study follow-up. Quantitative data will be collected through surveys administered at baseline, 2 weeks, and 12 weeks post-intervention. The Intervention group will also complete a post-training survey. These surveys will assess constructs such as self-efficacy, peer support behaviors, help-seeking attitudes, and mental health literacy, as aligned with the program's logic model. To complement the quantitative data, the study will include qualitative interviews. These will explore the lived experiences of two groups: (1) BTC participants who report using the training to support a peer, and (2) peers who report being positively impacted by someone who completed BTC. This qualitative component will use a semi-structured interview format and thematic analysis to explore how BTC skills were used in real-world interactions and the perceived outcomes of those interactions. The total duration of all study activities will be approximately 12 months, including recruitment, implementation, follow-up data collection, and analysis. Each individual participant's involvement will span approximately 12 weeks. Participants in the intervention group will be expected to complete the BTC program within the first 2 weeks of enrollment. All participants will complete surveys at baseline (T0), \~2 weeks after enrollment (T1), and again at a 12-week follow-up (T2). During the T1 survey, intervention group participants will complete a feasibility, usability, and acceptability survey whereas control group will complete a general survey about health and digital technologies. A subset of participants in the intervention group and their peers will be invited for qualitative interviews, which will occur after the final survey at T2.