Aurathreads final year project report

Abstract

Mental health among university students has emerged as a critical area of concern, withheightened academic demands, social pressures, and the transition to independence significantlyimpacting students' mental well-being. Despite these challenges, existing mental health servicesare underutilized due to persistent stigma and lack of awareness of the available resources in theuniversity environment. The team designed AuraThreads, a mobile application to provideuniversity students with an accessible platform for mental health support through online peerinteractions and self-awareness tools. AuraThreads enables students to anonymously expresshow they feel and receive supportive responses from peers and professionals. Additionally, theapplication enables them to track their emotional well-being. The development of AuraThreadsinvolved the utilization of various tools and technologies like React Native Expo framework withTypeScript for the mobile application, Appwrite for remote database operations, large languagemodels for the evaluation of text semantics, and Deezer API for music integration. Theapplication underwent comprehensive testing, including functionality tests, input tests, usabilitytests, and regression tests to ensure it operates as intended. In terms of service and maintenancefor AuraThreads, the development team is committed to regularly updating the utilized softwarelibraries to address vulnerabilities and maintaining compatibility with evolving mobile operatingsystems. The successful implementation and advancement of such an initiative requirescollaboration among various stakeholders, including university counselors, students, licensedtherapists, researchers, and experienced innovators, to ensure the application continues toeficiently and efectively meet the mental health needs of university students.