Abstract
While mental health resources and treatment for college students are at their most plentiful, barriers persist that create inaccessibility, including long wait times for treatment, impressions of uncaring staff and institution, being directed to inappropriate resources, and a long standing social stigma against mental health challenges. While treatment has proven to be very effective, a vast majority of students with a mental illness do not seek help and there is little to no data about the experience towards the appropriate treatment. Moreover, there is little input from people who are routinely placed in the position of a patient rather than as experts of their experiences. Inquiry in these experiences seek to address the gap between the services formed by facilitators of student mental healthcare and the realities of the experiences of the students in any relation to said services. The research intent was to enact a service design methodology to evaluate the effectiveness of the current student experience in seeking help for mental health challenges and inform how design for services can improve and further facilitate these experiences. This methodology aimed to employ the ideas of Ohio State college students between the ages of 18 and 29 who have experience interacting with mental health services and resources to inform the development and design of a more ideal help-seeking experience. The resulting artifacts illustrate better facilitation of student help-seeking, assurance of a more successful journey towards accessing, and receiving the appropriate resources and treatment.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2021 Special Focus: Towards a (Design) New Deal
KEYWORDS
Service Design, User Experience Design, Mental Health, College Students, University
