Effect of Mental Health Problems on Academic Performance among University Students in Pakistan

Abstract

Scientific interest in student’s mental health experiences has been increasing in the last years due to their influence on students’ learning processes, academic performance, and recently, the suicidal news of a student at a private university due to her mental health condition in Lahore Punjab, Pakistan, captured public attention. That incident also shifted researchers and scholars’ attention on the much underexplored and tabooed sphere of the broader public health domain. Hence, the current study aimed to explore the relationship between mental health problems and Pakistani university students’ academic performance. Participants were 540 senior semester students within the age range of 20–35 years taken from public and private institutes of Pakistan’s major cities, including Lahore, Islamabad, and Peshawar. Descriptive and inferential statistics was employed for data analysis. Pearson Product Moment Correlation, Hierarchical Regression analysis, and Independent sample t-test were used for data analysis in inferential statistics. The results of the study reveal that there is a strong positive association between mental health and improvement in academic performance. Mental health problems negatively affect the academic performance of university students. The findings of the current study were beneficial for shedding light on the ignorant area within the broader public health domain; the results are also helpful in raising awareness for not only students but also the parents and university administration to plan and design effective intervention strategies to provide proper mental health that resultantly promote academic excellence.