Mental health of students in higher education

Appendix 4I have also been involved in assessing a student with particularproblems and a disability who had made a number of complaints about theuniversity, and prepared a report, attended court, and then provided a needsassessment based on the student’s diagnosis.I have seen a wide variety of students, many of them presenting withfrank psychiatric pathologies. As can be seen by the breakdown in Table 1,the wide distribution of diagnostic categories, even in a small sample such asthis, is probably indicative of the variety and degree of pathology prevalentin the student body of London Metropolitan University, and confirms theassumptions made by the university about the need for adequate andprompt psychiatric assessments and referrals to appropriate services whenrequired. I have been impressed, however, by the amount of experiencepossessed by the small number of staff in the counselling service andelsewhere in the university that can offer help to these students, but believethat this matter needs further research and development.I have also had the opportunity of having very helpful regular meetingswith the manager of the counselling service regarding many issues relatingto the service as a whole. I have also met with the disability advisor, theacting head for disabilities and dyslexia, and the lead university chaplain, todiscuss liaison opportunities.Since joining the university I have made efforts to raise the profile ofstudent mental health in a number of contexts outside the university. I haveorganised and now chair the London Network of Psychiatrists involved in theLondon Student Mental Health Psychiatric Network. I sit on a working partyof the Royal College of Psychiatrists who reviewed the current report. I amalso the College representative on the Universities UK/GuildHE Committeeon the Promotion of Mental Well-Being in Higher Education Institutions(MWBHE). The Committee has organised a conference on fitness to practisewhere I facilitated one of their workshops. At another conference organisedby the Committee in April 2009 I gave a keynote address on facts aboutstudent mental health in the UK.I am enjoying my work with the student counselling service andbelieve that there are a number of developments which promise to improveaccess to mental healthcare and support for those students that require it,especially working jointly with the newly appointed mental health advisor,whom I also supervise.The breakdown according to gender indicates a similar ratio tothat observed for mental health disorders in the general population, thatis roughly 2:1 female to male ratio. Male students with mental healthproblems tend to be younger than female students, and this would have tobe compared with the age ratios across all students in London MetropolitanUniversity to see whether this is of significance.I have used the ICD-10 as this is the classification system currentlymost used in the UK. The most frequent categories of mental disorder areaffective disorders, representing one in five of all diagnoses (many of whichare accompanied by anxiety disorders); some of these conditions are severeenough to warrant active treatment under supervision. These are followed bya variety of personality disorders, the most frequent of which is emotionallyunstable personality, borderline type – about one in six of all diagnoses.Both these disorders are likely to affect the academic performance ofstudents but those with personality disorders may also affect other studentsor academic staff. A variety of anxiety disorders, approximately 10% ofall disorders, were also present. I have been struck by the numbers ofstudents with frank psychotic symptoms, all of them requiring interventionRoyal College of Psychiatrists81