Challenges and Strategies of Managing Mental Health Medication in Real-World Practices: Interview Study Among University Students

Background: Mental health has become a growing concern among university students. According to the Healthy Minds Study National Report 2022-2023, 46% of students have been diagnosed with a mental health condition by a health professional, reflecting a nearly 50% increase from 2013 to 2021. While researchers have developed various technologies to help this issue, one significant aspect of the mental health management journey is often understudied-the role of mental health medication. Understanding how university students manage their medication for mental health symptoms in real-world practice has not been fully explored. Objective: In this study, we aimed to examine university students' experiences in taking and managing their mental health medications. We want to understand the unique challenges in the mental health medication management process and their coping strategies, particularly examining the role of various technologies in this process. Methods: We conducted semistructured interviews with 10 participants who are self-identified as currently taking medication for mental health diagnosis and are students at a university. Two researchers (JL and JS) open-coded the interview transcripts and notes and conducted a thematic analysis to identify 3 primary themes, which we detail in the Results section. Results: We discovered that due to struggles with self-acceptance and the interdependent relationship between medication, symptoms, schedules, and life changes, the medication management process for students was a highly dynamic journey involving frequent dosage changes. Thus, students adopted flexible strategies of using minimal technology to manage their medication in different situations while maintaining a high degree of autonomy. Based on our findings, we propose design implications for future technologies to seamlessly integrate into their daily lives and assist students in managing their mental health medications. Conclusions: In the paper, we conducted semistructured interviews with university students currently undergoing medication for mental health issues. The interviews aimed to uncover the challenges they encountered in their university lives, along with the coping strategies and technologies used to navigate these challenges. We found that students often rely on creative ways to use fixed alarms on their phones; however, they encounter numerous difficulties due to factors such as the flexibility of daily routines. Based on these findings, we proposed 6 design implications for how advanced technology could better assist university students in managing their mental health medications.