Abstract:
Introduction: Psychosocial problem is widely affecting the population around the world and worsen in university students. Timely access to psychosocial counseling and support remained challenging. Hence, shifting to a digital-based approach would overcome the barriers to access to the services to all in need. However, limited evidence in the intention to use digital-based psychosocial counseling and its predictors among university students in Ethiopia.
Objective: This study aimed to assess the intention to use digital-based psychosocial counseling and its predictors among students at the University of Gondar, Northwest Ethiopia.
Methods: Cross-sectional study was conducted on 759 students from March 28 until April 28 -2023 at the University of Gondar, Northwest, Ethiopia. Proportional allocation was done and the participants were selected using stratified random sampling. The interviewer-administered questionnaire, adapted from the UTAUT model and kobo collect app was employed to collect the data. Data were exported to SPSS 20 for descriptive and AMOS version 23 for SEM analysis to assess the significance of relationships between variables using a path coefficient and a p-value< 0.05.
Results: A total of 750 (98.8%) responded to complete all the questionnaires. The proportion of intention to use digital-based psychosocial counseling was 54.9%, (95.0%: CI: 51.3%-58.5%). A structural equation modeling shows that performance expectancy (𝛽 = 0.510, p-value<0.001), effort expectancy (β=0.082, p-value=0.003), and social influence (𝛽 = 0. 307, p-value<0.001) had a direct relationship with intention to use digital based psychosocial counseling. Gender (𝛽 =0.545, p-value<0.001) was moderate performance expectancy.
Conclusion and recommendation: The study has shown a promising intention to use digital-based psychosocial counseling among university students. Performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence had a positive effect on the intention to use digital-based psychosocial counseling. Thus, the implementers need to give priority to enhancing and creating awareness for students related to how to use digital-based counseling.
