Mental health of students in higher education

Higher education contextHealthy UniversitiesThe social environment of higher education institutions is unique in manyimportant ways that are relevant to the emergence, detection and treatmentof mental disorders in students. This is perhaps one time in a person’s lifein which work, leisure, accommodation, social life, medical care, counsellingand social support are all provided in a single environment. Furthermore,this environment is one that has research and development as one of itscore functions. This provides opportunities to develop and evaluate newpossibilities for the prevention and treatment of mental disorders that maybe difficult to achieve elsewhere. For example, Andersson et al (2009)described a system established in a Swedish university in which all new firstyearstudents were assessed in terms of alcohol intake. Students who weredrinking at hazardous levels were offered a programme of therapy aimed atameliorating this. This intervention was associated with positive changes interms of alcohol use, stress and mental symptoms in comparison to high-riskfreshmen at a control university. These improvements were sustained 1 yearlater. (For a review of alcohol reduction strategies in students, see Larimer& Cronce, 2007.)The Healthy Universities initiative (www.healthyuniversities.ac.uk)has adopted a more ambitious rationale in relation to student health. Theuniversity or college is seen not only as a place of education but also asa resource for promoting health and well-being in students, staff and thewider community. It can do this in two ways. The first is through variousprogrammes of health promotion. The second is by imparting knowledge andskills that will help students to attain better health. The higher educationfunding councils and the Department of Health are supporting work thatfocuses on promoting student and staff well-being and many institutionsare now part of the Healthy Universities network. The MWBHE group haspublished guidelines on mental health promotion (www.mwbhe.com/publications-resources).Notwithstanding how good the services provided for students (orindeed staff) with mental disorders are, they will find it difficult to thriveunless the physical and educational environments are conducive to wellbeing,reflection and recovery. Individual services need to be set in thecontext of a healthy organisation to have the greatest impact. This is onewhere, for example, learning and social spaces are comfortable, tutors areapproachable and assessments are aligned with the curriculum and arespread out evenly to avoid unnecessary simultaneous deadlines.Higher education offers enormous potential to positively influencethe health and well-being of students, staff and the wider communitythrough education, research, knowledge exchange and institutional practice.Investment for health within the sector also contributes to core agendas suchas staff and student recruitment and retention, and hence institutional andsocietal productivity and sustainability. This was highlighted in the researchcommissioned by the Health Sciences and Practice Subject Centre andsupported by the Department of Health (Dooris & Doherty, 2009). The reportof this research opened with a quotation from Professor Richard Parish, ChiefExecutive, of the Royal Society for Public Health:‘[Healthy Universities matters not only because] it’s important for staffand students now – but because these are the people who are going tobecome the leaders of industry, our public services, our universities andour voluntary organisations in the future. So, it helps to set the toneRoyal College of Psychiatrists49