Stress management interventions for college students: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Comments on an article Stress management interventions for college students: A systematic review and meta-analysis by Y. Amanvermez et al. (2020). Although there have been a handful of meta-analyses on stress management interventions in different populations, Amanvermez et al.’s systematic review and meta-analysis of stress management interventions for college students contributes to the literature by separating studies that intervene with highly stressed students, from those that intervene with unselected student populations, restricting studies to guided stress management programs, and excluding interventions that focus on additional aspects to stress. These authors found that guided stress management interventions have moderate effects on stress and anxiety and small-to-moderate effects on depression. Furthermore, they found that target population, type, and length of intervention are important; highly stressed students benefit more than unselected samples, CBT-based interventions have greater effects than other theoretical types, and skills training leads to smaller effects than other types of interventions, with lengthier interventions more beneficial than shorter interventions for highly stressed students. Although Amanvermez et al. did not examine the effects of in-person versus online stress management programs, the current pandemic of COVID-19 and the measures of moving students off campus and into online classes suggest that online stress management programs might be the most relevant in reaching college students and attending to their mental needs from a distance. In the context of COVID-19, novel modalities of administering these programs are necessary and may continue to be beneficial even after the pandemic for increasing the reach, scalability, and accessibility of these programs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)