Reducing psychological distress and improving students well-being and academic self-efficacy: the effectiveness of a cognitive university counselling service for clinical and non-clinical situations

Mental health of undergraduate students has received more attention for the increase of prevalence and intensity of psychological distress. This work aims to verify the effectiveness of a cognitive behavioural counselling service in reducing the psychological distress and improve the academic self-efficacy on a sample of 124 students (57% above the clinical cut off) using a pre-post assessment design. Data show a significant reduction of distress and symptoms scores among students that completed the intervention and half of them had a reliable change. Preliminary data also show a significant improvement of the academic self-efficacy. University counselling services represent common first-line services for students and are effective in treating psychological distress in a wide range of clinical and sub-clinical situations.