Apathetic and withdrawing students in Japanese universities--with regard to Hikikomori and student apathy.

Abstract

In recent years, the increasing number of young people withdrawing from society, so called Hikikomori, has been a cause for concern in Japan. These are people who stay at home and do not work or attend school for more than 6 months. Most of them are not regarded as having any psychotic illness such as schizophrenia. With respect to college students, "student apathy" syndrome has been discussed since the 1960's. To evaluate the proportion of apathetic and withdrawing students among those who leave school, take off, or repeat academic years; to see how these situations have changed in the last 20 years; and to identify the characteristics of such high risk groups so as to provide them with effective psychiatric support services. First I examined the mean rates of the academic events mentioned above among students of Japanese national universities. I then compared those rates statistically between males and females, and among 6 groups according to gender and academic majors. Then the reasons for those academic events were examined. The rates of each event have continually increased over the last 21 years, and a considerable number of the students were shown to have been in a state of "student apathy." Male 4-year course students had a high risk, especially male science course students had serious problems.