Evaluating the effectiveness of counseling interventions on university students’ mental health and academic performance in Uzbekistan

The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of structured counseling interventions on mental health and academic performance of university students in Uzbekistan, using a quasi-experimental design with pre-test-post-test and control group. The statistical population was 240 undergraduate students with mild to moderate symptoms of depression or anxiety from three national universities (Samarkand, Bukhara, Tashkent) who were randomly allocated in two intervention groups (5 individual cognitive-behavioral counseling sessions) and control (usual care). Data were gathered by valid tools (BDI-II, BAI, PSS-10 and semester grade point average) and were analyzed by independent/paired t-tests, ANCOVA and Pearson correlation. The outcomes were that, compared with the control group, the intervention group showed significant reduction in depression (25.3%; Δ=-7.5, d=1.32), anxiety (28.0%; Δ=-7.4, d=1.48), and perceived stress (22.1%; Δ=-5.6, d=1.29) symptoms, and improvement in academic achievement (14.5%; Δ=+0.45 GPA). An extremely high negative correlation was reported between improved mental health and academic development (r=-0.53 to -0.61). More than 65% of the students in the intervention group achieved clinically significant improvement. The results confirm the effectiveness of short-term counseling interventions for enhancing at once psychological and learning indicators in higher education in Uzbekistan and indicate the need to develop student-centered counseling infrastructure as a key strategy in educational policy development.