Enhancing social support, hardiness, and acculturation to improve mental health among Asian Indian International students

International students upon relocation to a foreign country from their home countries undergo a major life event which can cause distress that has the potential to affect their mental health. A recent study found that belonging aspect of social support, prejudice of acculturation scale and commitment and control of hardiness were all predictive of mental health (R2 = 0.523) among international students of Asian Indian origin. It in this context that the purpose of this study was to design and pilot test an internet-based intervention aimed at enhancing the social support, hardiness and acculturation among students of Asian Indian origin at a large Midwestern university. A pretest-posttest randomized design was employed in this study. A pre test survey appraised the hardiness, social support, acculturation and mental health of 60 students who were then randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group was offered online instruction about social support, hardiness and acculturation through Blackboard TM over 2 months.The control group was exposed to an equivalent protocol but the content of web based instruction did not focus on social support, hardiness and acculturation but more on general health awareness and health promotion. The post-test survey was conducted after the completion of the intervention. Repeated measures ANOVA was done on the study variables. Recommendations for replicating such interventions in other groups of international students are presented.