University students experience high rates of psychological distress and frequently encounter barriers to accessing professional mental health support. Web-based interventions may provide a scalable and accessible approach for promoting mental health and well-being in university settings. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a transdiagnostic behavioural intervention that aims to increase psychological flexibility and has demonstrated beneficial effects on a range of psychological and academic outcomes among university students.
YOLO (You Only Live Once) is a four-week, self-guided, web-based ACT mental health promotion program developed for university students. Previous pilot and randomized controlled evaluations of YOLO demonstrated significant improvements in psychological well-being, distress, and academic functioning. Following these encouraging findings, YOLO was integrated into the University of Queensland's suite of digital well-being resources for students, and the present study was designed to evaluate its university-wide implementation using a prospective single-arm interventional approach.
The study aims to evaluate the preliminary effectiveness of the YOLO program in improving psychological distress, well-being, life satisfaction, academic performance, and psychological flexibility/inflexibility processes. In addition, the study will examine the feasibility, acceptability, usability, and engagement associated with participation in the intervention and investigate whether changes in psychological flexibility/inflexibility processes are associated with improvements in mental health and well-being outcomes. Findings from this study are expected to inform the future implementation and dissemination of web-based ACT interventions within university settings.