{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,7]],"date-time":"2026-10-07T14:52:15Z","timestamp":1791384735254,"version":"4.3.3"},"reference-count":46,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,7]],"date-time":"2026-10-07T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1791331200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Digit. Health"],"abstract":"<jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Background<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>College mental health burden increased during the COVID-19 era while university mental health services rapidly adopted remote and digital modes of care. The population-level co-occurrence of these changes has rarely been described across the pandemic and post-pandemic period.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>We performed a secondary ecological trend analysis of seven publicly available, weighted Healthy Minds Study national reports based on successive independent cross-sectional samples from Winter\/Spring 2020 through 2024\u20132025. The reports contained a nominal 553,785 response records across waves; they were not pooled as a single cohort. Harmonized outcomes included depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, nonsuicidal self-injury, self-reported academic impairment, treatment use, stigma, resource awareness, and selected digital-care indicators. Changes were summarized descriptively as percentage-point and relative differences; no across-wave significance tests or individual-level associations were estimated.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Depression increased from 37% in Winter\/Spring 2020 to 44% in 2021\u20132022 and was 37% in 2024\u20132025; anxiety increased from 31% to 37% and was 33% in 2024\u20132025. Self-reported academic impairment of at least 6 days in the prior 4 weeks declined from a Fall 2020 peak of 28% to 16% in 2024\u20132025. Therapy use increased from 27% to 38%, treatment among students with positive depression\/anxiety screens from 51% to 61%, resource awareness from 72% to 83%, and perceived public stigma declined from 51% to 36%. Among therapy users, remote-only care increased from 29% in Fall 2020 to 42% in Winter\/Spring 2021, while in-person-only care declined from 35% to 22%; remote-capable care (remote-only plus hybrid) increased from 65% to 77%. In 2024\u20132025, 7% of the weighted national sample reported a mobile app, online platform, or other digital mental health resource as a provider\/resource category.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Conclusions<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>The observed national estimates show post-peak improvement in several mental health and functional indicators alongside an early-pandemic shift toward remote and hybrid care. Because the analysis used aggregate reports with changing institutional composition, these findings describe population-level trends rather than causal effects or individual recovery.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fdgth.2026.1963340","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,7]],"date-time":"2026-10-07T14:01:25Z","timestamp":1791381685000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["College mental health and the digital care transition: national trends in distress, help-seeking, and technology-mediated access, 2020\u20132025"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"8","author":[{"given":"G\u00e9nesis Carolina","family":"Ar\u00e9valo Guadalupe","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Universidad Estatal de Milagro (UNEMI)","place":["Milagro, Ecuador"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Luis Alexander","family":"Gamboa Tama","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Universidad Estatal de Milagro (UNEMI)","place":["Milagro, Ecuador"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Joaqu\u00edn Estal\u00edn","family":"Gamboa Tama","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Universidad Estatal de Milagro (UNEMI)","place":["Milagro, Ecuador"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,7]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"41","DOI":"10.1080\/07448481.2018.1515748","article-title":"Trends in college students\u2019 mental health diagnoses and utilization of services, 2009\u20132015","volume":"68","author":"Oswalt","year":"2020","journal-title":"J Am Coll Health"},{"key":"B2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"60","DOI":"10.1176\/appi.ps.201800332","article-title":"Increased rates of mental health service utilization by U.S. College students: 10-year 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