Indicated interventions for undergraduate university students experiencing anxiety and depression in low-income and...

Depression and anxiety are significantly elevated among undergraduate university students worldwide. Despite this, treatment rates among this population remain low. To address this gap, there is a need for not only the provision of treatment options but also for relevant scalable prevention interventions. Such programmes have become more common in high-income countries but remain limited in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). This scoping review will identify and map key components, delivery and assessment methods and reported outcomes of indicated prevention interventions conducted with undergraduate students with symptoms of depression and/or anxiety in LMICs.

A comprehensive search strategy will be developed and used to search the following databases: MEDLINE (via PubMed), Scopus, Africa-Wide, CINAHL, PsycINFO, ERIC and SocINDEX (via EBSCOhost). Studies will be included if empirical research is presented on an indicated intervention that was delivered to undergraduate students in LMICs. Additionally, studies must report on depression and/or anxiety as outcomes, be published in English, peer-reviewed and available as full-text. There will be no limits placed on publication date and all study types will be included, such as randomised controlled trials, quasi-experimental and mixed methods. Study selection will be conducted by two independent reviewers using a two-step screening process with a third reviewer consulted to resolve conflicts. Data capturing important methodological and intervention-specific aspects of the included studies will be extracted and charted onto a pre-drafted spreadsheet and subsequently summarised numerically and thematically.

As this review does not involve primary data collection, formal ethical approval was not required; however, permission was obtained from the Human Research Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town. The findings will be disseminated through publication, presentations and stakeholder engagement activities. This protocol has been registered on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/juh2z).