Intervention for student carer mental health and wellbeing

About the project

Student carers are disadvantaged with respect to both their health and wellbeing and their academic achievements, experiencing mental health problems and difficulty negotiating their student-carer identity. Student carer numbers will continue to rise due to factors such as population longevity and enhanced distance learning. They face particular barriers in accessing mental health support and should be afforded flexible and accessible pathways to health interventions. Existing interventions are typically designed for specific health problems experienced by those cared for rather than for carers. There are no known contextually-sensitive interventions designed for student carers.

The overarching aim of this project is to co-produce a sustainable mental health and wellbeing intervention for student carers. The objectives will be to: (i) determine the mental health and wellbeing support needs/preferences for university student carers; (ii) identify viable content/structure and meaningful outcomes for a brief, low-cost, and scalable intervention to support mental health and wellbeing for student carers; (iii) derive a theory-of-change for the intervention from the perspectives of student carers; and (iv) test the effectiveness of the prototype intervention. These objectives will be achieved by taking a phased mixed-methods participatory approach, comprising three distinct phases: (i) a situational analysis using secondary data and a systematic review; (ii) a co-produced intervention optimisation phase including participatory co-design, in which student carers will be asked to engage in generating an intervention and intervention theory-of-change; and (iii) a feasibility study, gathering data to validate and/or refine the intervention approach and research methodology. Sample sizes will be informed by an information power approach and will use purposive methods to aim for maximum diversity amongst participants with respect to age, gender, phase of study, and intervention engagement.