Examining the Experiences of Campus Safety among International Students

Although international students comprise a significant percentage of the college population, limited attention is directed to their safety needs. This study measured the experiences and perceptions of campus safety among international college students in the United States. The researchers sampled participants from institutions around the country, who self-identified as international students. A researcher-developed 53-item Likert scale questionnaire, the International College Students’ Safety Questionnaire (ICSSQ), was administered to the sample. Findings from the exploratory factor analysis provided preliminary evidence for a four-factor solution for the 26-item ICSSQ with adequate internal consistency. Salient demographic variables, such as, nationality, college status and perceived proficiency in English, were found to be significantly linked to derived factor scores. Implications for institutional adoption of this instrument, along with limitations and directions for future research are included.

The Effectiveness of a Centering Meditation Intervention on College Stress and Mindfulness: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Mental health concerns are climbing steadily on college campuses, and universities do not have the staffing and financial resources to address the overwhelming needs of students seeking counseling services. College counselors generally must place students on waitlists or refer them to external resources. Further, during the COVID-19 pandemic, university counselors have been working tirelessly to treat students through online formats. Alternative, online, evidence-based interventions offer college counselors a significant advantage in effectively treating their students. We seek to expand the empirical evidence for mindfulness interventions through online formats for the college population. We registered the study (ISRCTN13587045) at www.isrctn.com.Objective: We examined the effectiveness of a unique online centering meditation and its impact on stress and trait mindfulness in the college population.Methods: Through a randomized controlled trial, the treatment group participated in a 4-week intervention of centering for 10 min each morning and night. We measured stress and mindfulness in both groups through the Perceived Stress Scale and Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Scale-Revised at baseline, 2 weeks, and 4 weeks.Results: The centering meditation treatment had a statistically significant positive impact on stress and mindfulness compared to a waitlist control group. The meditation group had an average of 64% adherence rate.Conclusion: The study findings indicate that individuals who participate in a 4-week online centering intervention showed improved levels of stress and trait mindfulness over time.Clinical Trial Registration: WHO International Clinical Registry Platform, identifier: ISRCTN13587045.

The Relationship Between Intuitive Eating and Diet Quality in a College Population

Many college students have nutrient poor and energy dense diets and are also more likely to experience poor body image, which can result in unsafe dieting behaviors for the purpose of managing weight. Intuitive eating is an alternative approach to dieting that focuses on physiological hunger and fullness cues, while eating for both satisfaction and health without restriction of any foods. This study examined the association between intuitive eating and diet quality in a college population. College students, aged 18-56 years, completed an online survey which assessed intuitive eating using the Intuitive Eating Scale-2 (IES-2) and diet quality using the Starting The Conversation (STC) simplified food frequency instrument. IES-2 total score was positively correlated with higher overall diet quality and was negatively correlated with fast food and chip consumption. Eating for physical rather than emotional reasons and body-food choice congruence IES-2 subscales were positively correlated with diet quality while the unconditional permission to eat subscale was negatively correlated with diet quality. Strategies that focus on eating for health and well-being and minimize emotional eating are associated with higher overall diet quality and may be incorporated in dietary interventions among college students aimed at promoting healthy behaviors.

Factor Structure and Measurement Invariance of the Academic Time Management and Procrastination Measure

Students’ ability to effectively allocate time toward educational tasks and reduction of maladaptive behaviors such as procrastination are important predictors of successful educational outcomes. The Academic Time Management and Procrastination Measure (ATMPM) purports to measure the extent to which students engage in such behaviors; however, the psychometric properties of the ATMPM have only been explored with exploratory techniques. In addition, the extent to which measurement invariance is supported among first-generation college students (FGCS) and non-FGCS is unknown. The purpose of the present study was to (1) examine the factor structure of the ATMPM within a college population by employing confirmatory factor analysis and to (2) investigate measurement invariance through an application of multiple group confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA). Results supported a three-factor solution (planning time, monitoring time, and procrastination), and invariance analyses supported full configural, metric, and scalar invariance.

A Comparison of Four Commercially Available RNA Extraction Kits for Wastewater Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in a College Population

Localized wastewater surveillance has allowed for public health officials to gain a broader understanding of SARS-CoV-2 viral prevalence in the community allowing public health officials time to prepare for impending outbreaks. Given variable levels of virus in the population through public health interventions, proper concentration and extraction of viral RNA is a key step in ensuring accurate detections. With many commercial RNA extraction kits and methodologies available, the performance of 4 different kits were evaluated for SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection in wastewater, specifically focusing on their applicability to lower population densities such as those at university campus dorms. Raw wastewater samples were collected at 4 sites on a college campus over a 24 hour period as a composite sample. Included in these sites was an isolation site that housed students that tested positive for Covid-19 via nasopharyngeal swabs. These samples were analyzed using the following kits: Qiagen All Prep PowerViral DNA/RNA kit, New England BioLabs Monarch RNA MiniPrep Kit, and Zymo Quick RNA-Viral Kit, and the Zymo Quick-RNA Fecal/Soil Microbe MicroPrep Kit. All four sites were processed according to the manufacturers guidelines. Extractions were then quantified with RT-qPCR one-step reactions using an N2 primer and a linearized plasmid standard. While the Zymo Quick-RNA Fecal/Soil Microbe MicroPrep Kit (also known as the Zymo Environ Water RNA Kit) only recovered approximately 73% (+/- 38%) SARS-CoV-2 RNA compared to the Zymo Quick-RNA Viral kit, it was the most time efficient kit to yield comparable results. This extraction kit had a cumulative processing time of approximately five hours compared, while the other three kits had processing times between approximately 9 and 9.5 hours. Based on the current research, the most effective kits for smaller population densities are pellet based and include a homogenization, inhibitor removal, and RNA preservation step.

Psychometric Properties of the Suicide Stroop Task in a Chinese College Population

ObjectiveThis study aimed to test the psychometric properties of the suicide stroop task in a Chinese college population.MethodsCollege students (n = 121) who were in the 1st–4th grade, fluent in Chinese, and without color blindness were recruited from a university in Guangzhou, China from September to December 2019. Participants were administered the suicide stroop task at baseline and 1-month follow-up.ResultsThe suicide stroop task showed excellent internal reliability (Cronbach’s α ranged from 0.940 to 0.953). However, the suicide stroop task did not reveal suicide-related attentional biases among current suicide ideators and was not significantly associated with the severity of suicidal ideation, depression, hopelessness, nor anhedonia (all p values > 0.05), indicating a lack of concurrent validity for the task. Additionally, the two-time data of interference scores could not generate intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) due to a negative average covariance among data, which indicated poor test–retest consistency for the task.ConclusionThe results of this study did not support the use of the suicide stroop task on the identification of suicidal risk among Chinese college students. It is crucial to assess the psychometric properties of behavioral measures rigorously as self-report measures before large applications in clinical and community settings.