Relationship between cognitive behavioral variables and mental health status among university students: A meta-analysis

Tomonari Irie; Kengo Yokomitsu; Yuji Sakano

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0223310

Relationship between cognitive behavioral variables and mental health status among university students: A meta-analysis

PLoS One. 2019 Sep 27;14(9):e0223310. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0223310. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Tomonari Irie^{1

2}, Kengo Yokomitsu³, Yuji Sakano⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Education and Culture, Hokusho University, Hokkaido, Japan.
² Graduate School of Psychological Science, Health Sciences University of Hokkaido, Hokkaido, Japan.
³ College of Comprehensive Psychology, Ritsumeikan University, Osaka, Japan.
⁴ School of Psychological Science, Health Sciences University of Hokkaido, Hokkaido, Japan.

Abstract

Cognitive behavioral therapy is an effective treatment for improving mental health problems among university students. However, intervention components have different effects on mental health problems. This paper is a meta-analysis of the data concerning the relationship between cognitive behavioral variables and mental health status among university students. A total of five electronic databases were reviewed, and 876 articles met the initial selection criteria. Reviewers applied standardized coding schemes to extract the correlational relationship between cognitive behavioral variables and mental health status. A total of 55 articles were included in the meta-analysis. Correlations were found for three cognitive behavioral variables (attention, thought, and behavior) across nine mental health domains (negative affect, positive affect, happiness, social function, stress response, psychological symptom, quality of life, well-being, and general health). Across each cognitive behavioral process and all mental health domains, the estimated mean correlation was medium (r = .32 - .46), and varied by the domain of mental health.

Publication types

Meta-Analysis
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Cognition*
Humans
Mental Health / statistics & numerical data*
Students / psychology*
Students / statistics & numerical data
Universities / statistics & numerical data

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI grant number 17K13944. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.