The change in the mental health care model at URV has enabled more people to be seen and has provided a permanent online resource for managing stress

The change in the URV’s mental health care model implemented during the 2020-21 academic year is now bearing fruit: the number of students being seen is now higher, academic tutors and coordinators have a resource to support students when necessary, and the Diversities Support Service has been integrated into the referral pathway.

Since academic staff from the URV’s Department of Psychology took over the Psychological Support Service (SAP) over six years ago, more than 800 people have been seen. In the previous six years, there had been around 320. In the 2025–26 academic year, the number of students attended (181) was higher than in previous years, partly due to the launch of the VIVIM programme.

The VIVIM programme is an online, self-administered tool for students who want to manage stress at their own pace through practical coping and self-management resources based on cognitive behavioural therapy. It includes resources that help the individual to understand why they are feeling the way they do, to plan activities to improve their mood, to identify and change negative thoughts, and to develop useful strategies.

Created by Christopher Williams, a researcher at the University of Glasgow, it is used in primary care centres in several countries. The URV has adapted the VIVIM programme into Catalan and Spanish and carried out a study to evaluate its effects on students’ emotional states. As part of this, the Psychological Support Service has provided support to the students who made up the study’s control group and in doing so has raised awareness among students experiencing emotional distress.

The results of the pilot study, published in the Journal of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy, point to improvements in depression and anxiety among those who completed the programme, although only a low number of students adhered to the programme until the end. However, given its usefulness, the programme will soon be made available to the entire university community once the study has been concluded.

The Psychological Support Service

Fina Canals and Anna Huguet are professors and mental health professionals who run the SAP and have focused their efforts in recent years on raising awareness of it among students. When they conducted a study four years ago to assess the mental health of students, they realised that the service was not well-known within the community. Consequently they have tried to make the SAP more visible, although word of mouth is also helping to increase students’ awareness of it. Students can book an appointment via the website and will receive confidential, professional care for up to three sessions.

Canals and Huguet explain that the most common reason for consultation is related to emotional problems, which include symptoms of anxiety, depression, and academic stress. However, they also describe how a considerable number of students with neurodevelopmental disorders turn to the Psychological Support Service due to emotional distress and academic or adaptive difficulties. Some of these students have had no prior diagnosis, so they are often recommended to seek external assessment and appropriate help, both professionally and within the URV.

In addition to emotional problems, the service also detects cases of eating disorders, situations of current or past abuse, obsessions-compulsions, and addiction problems. In these cases, the students are recommended to seek help from specialised centres or services, as the SAP cannot provide comprehensive therapy nor does is it a substitute for full psychological, psychiatric or medical treatments.

Whatever they may be, “the various problems that we detect can have a direct or indirect effect on students’ academic achievement,” conclude Canals and Huguet.

Reference: Anna Huguet, Josefa Canals-Sans, Christopher Williams, Feasibility of an internet-based cognitive behavioral treatment for university students with depression and/or anxiety: A mixed-methods single arm repeated measures study, Journal of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy, Volume 37, Issue 1, 2027, 100627, ISSN 2589-9791, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbct.2026.100627.