Engagement and Effectiveness of a Healthy Coping Intervention via Chatbot for university students: proof-of-concept study during the COVID-19 pandemic

University students are increasingly reporting common mental health problems, such as stress, anxiety and depression, and they frequently face barriers to seeking psychological support, because of stigma, cost and availability of mental health services. This issue is even more critical in the challenging time of COVID-19 pandemic. Digital mental health interventions, such as those delivered via chatbots on mobile devices, offer the potential to achieve scalability of healthy coping interventions by lowering cost and supporting prevention