Brief Report
Predictors of willingness to use cyber counseling for college students with disabilities

Poster presentation: Lan, C. M. (2012, October). The predictors of cyber-counseling will of college students with disabilities. Paper presented at the 51st Psychology Conference was held from October 13th to 14th, 2012 in Taichung, Taiwan.
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Abstract

Background

Cyber counseling is a new method for assisting people in coping with distress. People in Taiwan are more familiar with face-to-face counseling than with cyber counseling. Using computers is the most popular activity among college students with disabilities. Cyber counseling is effective for lessening client disturbance. Therefore, cyber counseling is an alternative to face-to-face counseling.

Objective

This study measured the willingness of college students with disabilities to use cyber counseling to meet their mental health needs. In addition, the predictors of the willingness to use cyber counseling were explored.

Methods

The subjects were college students with disabilities who were recruited from universities in Southern Taiwan through the Internet and in college counseling centers. A total of 214 structured questionnaires were collected and subsequently analyzed using SPSS Version 18.0 through stepwise regression for discovering the crucial predictors of the willingness of college students to use cyber counseling.

Results

The crucial predictors of the willingness of college students to use cyber counseling were cyber-counseling needs, the need for cyber-counseling methods (the need to use various cyber-counseling methods), a help-seeking attitude in cyber counseling, a hearing disorder, cyber counseling need for academic achievement, and grade level. The explained proportion of variance was 65.4%.

Conclusions

The willingness of college students with disabilities to use cyber counseling was explained according to cyber-counseling needs, cyber-counseling attitudes, disease type, and grades. Based on the results, this study offers specific suggestions and future directions for research on cyber counseling for college students with disabilities.

Section snippets

Cyber counseling needs

Young people rely increasingly on the Internet for entertainment, information, personal help and advice, and social connections.6 Cyber counseling is a new treatment modality for psychological health that can assume various forms such as therapeutic software and online counseling. Counselors are now using the Internet to conduct online counseling and consultation sessions instead of traditional face-to-face counseling.7 Compared with face-to-face counseling, online counseling demonstrates the

Cyber-counseling attitudes and willingness

Help-seeking willingness, attitudes, and behaviors interact with each other and exhibit close relationships.13 College students demonstrate a positive willingness to seek help in face-to-face counseling for problems related to sexuality, family, personality, romantic relationships, study, female gender roles, age, and social support. The greatest predictor of the willingness to seek counseling was a positive attitude toward seeking psychological help. The remainder of the variables, which

Subjects and procedure

The subjects were college students with disabilities recruited from universities in Taiwan. The criteria for participating in this study entailed being a college student in Taiwan and having a disability as categorized according to the World Health Organization (WHO) International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF). Purposive sampling was used by sending e-mails to 168 college counseling centers in Taiwan, stating the study purpose and target subjects. The e-mails

Demographics and other background information

The study subjects comprised 51.3% women, and the mean age was 21.11 years. Among the subjects, 58.9% came from technological universities; 50.5% had lower grades; 45.8% had average academic achievement; 13.1% had regular, part-time work; 18.7% had psychiatric disorders; 40.2% had mild disabilities (categorized according to the WHO ICF); 67.8% needed to attend hospital rehabilitation sessions; 70.6% visited social networking sites; and 61.7% had no cyber-counseling experience (Table 1).

Cyber-counseling variables

The mean

Descriptive data analysis of college students with disabilities

The mean of each item on help-seeking attitudes in cyber counseling was 3.77, which was higher than that obtained by Rochlen et al in a study on general college students.18 The author assert that the difference is due to student counseling centers at colleges presently offering more resources than they previously did. Numerous interventions are now available in Taiwan, particularly for students with disabilities. Regarding cyber counseling, students with disabilities placed more worth on Value

Limitations

The study limitations included the small sample size. In addition, the results are relevant only to college students with disabilities in Taiwan. In 2013, there were 12,288 college students with disabilities in Taiwan; therefore, future studies can include a larger sample size.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the teachers and college students with disabilities of college counseling centers in Taiwan, and also thank the National Science Committee for the funding support.

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Role of funding sources: National Science Council in Taiwan (NSC 100-2511-S-309 -001) provided financial support for the conduct of the research.

Contributors: The author had participated in the research and approved the final manuscript.

Conflict of interest: There are no conflicts of interest.

Ethical considerations: The author complied with APA ethical standards in the research process and that the work was approved was by the Institutional Review Board of Chang Jung Christian University in Taiwan.

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