Can Undergraduates Solve the Inpatient Mental Health Crisis? (2025-2026)

Background

For centuries, people with mental illness have been mistreated by the medical establishment. Attempts to repair this system have often been misguided and poorly funded, and there remains an urgent need for an effective and economical way to treat severe mental illness.

Adolescents with severe mental illness may benefit from extended treatment in facilities that provide 24-hour care and support, yet decreased state funding has led to shortages of available beds. Instead, many adolescents are briefly admitted to inpatient psychiatric units until they are deemed stable and discharged home, where they and their families are often unequipped to manage their symptoms. As a result, the individual is often readmitted. Many changes are needed to overcome this crisis, but undergraduate students may be uniquely positioned to help support adolescents and their families.

Project Description

This project team will create a model whereby local undergraduate students can be trained as behavioral coaches to provide support and tools for hospitalized adolescents, and can serve as text-based support coaches for adolescents once discharged. This model, DukeBridge, will build on the success of DukeLine, a text-based mental health support line run by and for Duke students. The project will proceed with four aims:

• Aim 1: Conduct focus groups with Duke University Medical Center staff, hospital administration, departmental leadership, hospitalized adolescents and their parents to establish the most efficacious way to utilize peer coaches.
• Aim 2: Research precedent and work with risk management officials to establish ethical and regulatory guidelines for students to provide emotional support for hospitalized and discharged adolescents. Write a manuscript summarizing the use of pediatric emotional support coaches in inpatient psychiatric hospitals.
• Aim 3: Develop an emotional awareness and regulation skills curriculum and workbook for patients. The team will perform a literature review to investigate existing skills curricula implemented on inpatient psychiatric hospital units, the results of which will be submitted for a conference presentation to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
• Aim 4: Assess the acceptability and feasibility of the developed curriculum with hospital administration, hospital staff, hospitalized adolescents and parents. Create an executive summary for DukeBridge and provide it to all relevant stakeholders to ensure there is universal support for the initial pilot of this service.

Two subteams will be established; one will focus on Aims 1 and 2 while the other will focus on Aim 3. All students will collaborate on Aim 4.

Anticipated Outputs

Executive summary of focus group results; manuscript summarizing the use of pediatric emotional support coaches in inpatient hospitals; literature review on inpatient mental health curricula; patient curriculum and workbook; final executive summary of findings for stakeholders

Student Opportunities

Ideally, this project team will include 2 graduate students and 6 undergraduate students interested in medicine, psychology, neuroscience, design, marketing, management and communications.

The whole team will meet weekly to ensure the coherence of the project and to participate in didactic sessions regarding ethical research protocols, database creation and data cleaning. The two subteams will also meet weekly.

Team members will acquire knowledge of regulatory issues in clinical research as well as various data collection, analysis and visualization skills. They will also learn how to write a research abstract and academic journal submission and how to create a marketing presentation for stakeholders. Ultimately, students will benefit from a unique opportunity to contribute to positive change in the mental health treatment system.

Timing

Fall 2025 – Summer 2026

• Fall 2025: Conduct focus groups and create executive summary; conduct investigation of existing student volunteer programs in North Carolina; conduct literature review of existing inpatient mental health curricula
• Spring 2026: Prepare manuscripts related to peer support on inpatient units and available mental health curricula for inpatient units; design curricula for inpatient unit
• Summer 2026: To be determined based on progress of the team

Crediting

Academic credit available for fall and spring semesters; summer funding available