The role of time attitudes in predicting the outcome of a university counselling intervention

Introduction: Time attitudes refer to positive and negative feelings towards past, present and future, and have been associated with both adaptive and maladaptive psychological functioning of adolescents and young adults. Recent studies have shown that university counselling services act as strategic resources in intercepting student’s distress and promoting their health in a key development stage. However, the way in which time attitudes can influence the effectiveness of a counselling intervention is still unclear. Aim: The present work aims to investigate whether time attitudes predict the outcome of a psychodynamic counselling intervention in a sample of university students. We hypothesize that higher scores on positive time attitudes (Past Positive, Present Positive, Future Positive) predict a better intervention outcome in terms of well-being, symptoms, functioning and risk. Methods: The sample included 50 university students who underwent a psychodynamic counselling intervention at Sapienza University of Rome as of January 2023. They completed Adolescent and Adult Time Inventory -Time Attitudes Scale (AATI-TA) and Clinical Outcome in Routine Evaluation-Outcome Measure (CORE-OM) in four different times: two times before the counselling intervention (T0, T1) and two after the end of it (T2, T3). A regression model was conducted to assess whether positive AATI-TA scores predicted the intervention success in terms of decreasing CORE-OM scores (difference between the sum of scores at T0 and T1 and the sum of scores at T2 and T3). Results: Preliminary results shows that higher scores in positive time attitudes at the pre-test predicted a better intervention outcome. Promising results address the influence of time attitudes. Students who reported higher scores in Past Positive, Present Positive and Future Positive dimensions showed more significant improvement in well-being, symptoms, functioning and risk dimensions after the counselling intervention. Discussion: Our results support the hypothesis that positive feelings toward time can influence the outcome of a counselling intervention. These findings bring new knowledge on the variables that can impact the outcome of a counselling intervention and may have important implications for the development of focused interventions for university students.