Abstract
Objectives: Mental disorders and suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB) are common and burdensome among college students. Although available evidence suggests that only a small proportion of the students with these conditions receive treatment, broad-based data on patterns of treatment are lacking. The aim of this study is to examine the receipt of mental health treatment among college students cross-nationally.
Methods: Web-based self-report surveys were obtained from 13,984 first year students from 19 colleges in eight countries across the world as part of the World Health Organization's World Mental Health–International College Student Initiative. The survey assessed lifetime and 12-month common mental disorders/STB and treatment of these conditions.
Results: Lifetime and 12-month treatment rates were very low, with estimates of 25.3–36.3% for mental disorders and 29.5–36.1% for STB. Treatment was positively associated with STB severity. However, even among severe cases, lifetime and 12-month treatment rates were never higher than 60.0% and 45.1%, respectively.
Conclusions: High unmet need for treatment of mental disorders and STB exists among college students. In order to resolve the problem of high unmet need, a reallocation of resources may focus on innovative, low-threshold, inexpensive, and scalable interventions.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e1764 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Early online date | 20 Jan 2019 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jun 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Prof. SIU Oi-ling is one of the WHO WMH-ICS CollaboratorsFunding
Funding to support this initiative was received from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) R56MH109566 (R. P. A.), and the content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health or NIMH; the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (11N0514N/11N0516N/1114717 N) (P. M.), the King Baudouin Foundation (2014-J2140150-102905) (R. B.), and Eli Lilly (IIT-H6U-BX-I002) (R. B. and P. M.); BARMER, a health care insurance company, for project StudiCare (D. D. E.); ZonMw (Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development; grant 636110005) and the PFGV (PFGV; Protestants Fonds voor de Geestelijke Volksgezondheid) in support of the student survey project (P. C.); South African Medical Research Council and the Ithemba Foundation (D. J. S.); Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria, Instituto de Salud Carlos III—FEDER (PI13/00343), ISCIII (Río Hortega, CM14/00125), ISCIII (Sara Borrell, CD12/00440), Ministerio de Sanidad, Servicios Sociales e Igualdad, PNSD (Exp. 2015I015); DIUE Generalitat de Catalunya (2017 SGR 452), FPU (FPU15/05728) (J. A.); Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria, Instituto de Salud Carlos III—FEDER (PI13/00506) (G. V.); European Union Regional Development Fund (ERDF) EU Sustainable Competitiveness Programme for Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Public Health Agency (HSC R&D), and Ulster University (T. B.); Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT) grant CB-2016-01-285548 (CB). The World Mental Health International College Student (WMH-ICS) initiative is carried out as part of the WHO World Mental Health (WMH) Survey Initiative. The WMH survey is supported by the National Institute of Mental Health NIMH R01MH070884, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Pfizer Foundation, the US Public Health Service (R13-MH066849, R01-MH069864, and R01 DA016558), the Fogarty International Center (FIRCA R03-TW006481), the Pan American Health Organization, Eli Lilly and Company, Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, GlaxoSmithKline, and Bristol-Myers Squibb (R. C. K.). None of the funders had any role in the design, analysis, interpretation of results, or preparation of this paper.
Keywords
- affective disorders
- anxiety
- college students
- health service
- suicide
