The invisible problem? Improving students’ mental health

5. Challenges
Data such as the more recent 2015 NUS survey showing eight
out of 10 students have a mental health problem are often
counterproductive. While raising awareness about mental
health is important, it needs to be done in the right way.
This is because increasing the perceived prevalence of
something can result in increased instances of it. To use
an analogy, most college students think their friends drink
more than they do. This drives up the likelihood of students
engaging in heavy drinking as they think heavy drinking
is the norm. 59 Providing personalised normative feedback
can prevent this. This gives students information on the true
facts about alcohol consumption, with the result that heavy
drinking is reduced. 60 Similar interventions have been used for
reducing risky sexual behaviour. 61 The same sort of feedback is
needed with mental health – or at least, inaccurate feedback
needs to be prevented and all commentary should consider
the methodology of any research they quote. When the data
suggests the overwhelming majority of students have mental
health problems, more students may start to think they do too
as it becomes the perceived norm. As Jeremy Christie, Project
Director of Students Against Depression warns: ‘by saying
people are vulnerable, vulnerability can spread.’
A second challenge regards the chronic underfunding of NHS
and university mental health services. GP practices have a
lower allowance for students than the general population. For
example, the Bristol Student Health Service receives only 66
per cent of the average practice funding. Many practices have
lost Minimum Practice Income Guarantee (MPIG) funding and
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