TY - JOUR
T1 - Making “Joy Pie” to Stay Joyful
T2 - Self-Care Interventions Alleviate College Students’ Mental Health Challenges
AU - Zhong, Bu
AU - Xie, Lola
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 by the authors.
PY - 2023/3/1
Y1 - 2023/3/1
N2 - As more college students are facing mental health challenges, it is imperative to explore innovative ways of improving their mental health, including developing self-care interventions that help mitigate their stressors. Based on the Response Styles Theory and self-care conceptions, this study creates the “Joy Pie” project that consists of five self-care strategies, aiming to regulate negative emotions and increase self-care efficacy. Using an experimental design and two-wave data collected from a representative sample of Beijing college students (n1 = 316, n2 = 127), this study assesses the effects of the five proposed interventions on the students’ self-care efficacy and mental health management. The results show that self-care efficacy helped improve mental health through emotion regulation, which is mediated by age, gender, and family income. The promising results support the effectiveness of the “Joy Pie” interventions in strengthening self-care efficacy and improving mental health. This study offers insights into building back better mental health security among college students at this critical time when the world is recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
AB - As more college students are facing mental health challenges, it is imperative to explore innovative ways of improving their mental health, including developing self-care interventions that help mitigate their stressors. Based on the Response Styles Theory and self-care conceptions, this study creates the “Joy Pie” project that consists of five self-care strategies, aiming to regulate negative emotions and increase self-care efficacy. Using an experimental design and two-wave data collected from a representative sample of Beijing college students (n1 = 316, n2 = 127), this study assesses the effects of the five proposed interventions on the students’ self-care efficacy and mental health management. The results show that self-care efficacy helped improve mental health through emotion regulation, which is mediated by age, gender, and family income. The promising results support the effectiveness of the “Joy Pie” interventions in strengthening self-care efficacy and improving mental health. This study offers insights into building back better mental health security among college students at this critical time when the world is recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
KW - college student
KW - COVID-19
KW - emotion as information
KW - mental health
KW - self-care
KW - social comparison
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85149922032&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/ijerph20053823
DO - 10.3390/ijerph20053823
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 36900839
AN - SCOPUS:85149922032
SN - 1661-7827
VL - 20
JO - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
JF - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
IS - 5
M1 - 3823
ER -