Enhancing Peer Counseling Knowledge through Peer Counseling Training Program

The issue of mental health has attracted interest not only in the field of health but also in many sectors from education to industry. Especially the fact that higher education is the intersection of many fields makes mental health in higher education worthy of research. In this respect, the research aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis of studies investigating mental health in higher education institutions. Almost 30 thousand studies published between 1960 and 2024 in Scopus database were reviewed. In the analysis of document, descriptive analysis, citation analysis, co-citation analysis, and keyword analyses were conducted. After reviewing and analysis, four significant results emerged. First of all, the number of studies has increased dramatically in the recent years. Secondly, most of the influential documents were related to Covid-19 and were published in public health journals. Thirdly, the intellectual structure of the knowledge base on mental health in higher education institutions consisted of assessment of mental health, mental health policy, mental wellbeing and health education, public mental health, and mental health interventions. The last result was the fact that the topical foci of the documents presented a coherent perspective with an intellectual structure and showed the dominance of higher education context in the recent years in the corpus of mental health. It was concluded that the study broadens our understanding of the structure and processes of mental health in higher education by bringing a holistic perspective on mental health.

Research is needed to better understand mental health (MH) problems among higher education (HE) students and how to address them. The Observatory on Student Mental Health in Higher Education (OSMHHE) brings together 350 members across Quebec (Canada) and internationally. Its mission is to develop, promote, and disseminate knowledge to foster a culture that supports student MH in HE. This study aims to describe the OSMHHE's research protocol, which consists of three objectives: (1) establishing a portrait of students' MH and its determinants, (2) identifying and evaluating a variety of MH practices, and (3) assessing the implementation and impacts of the OSMHHE as a knowledge mobilization infrastructure. Objective 1 will be achieved through a provincial survey using a cross-sectional, repeated-measures design with 2 data collections (November 2024 and 2026) targeting the entire Quebec HE student population. Dimensions, indicators, and scales were selected based on conceptual frameworks, a systematic literature review, and Delphi methods. Analyses will include descriptive statistics by education levels; inferential analyses comparing subpopulations; multiple regressions, logistic models, and linear mixed models to identify MH determinants; and repeated-measures ANOVA to examine temporal changes. Objective 2 will evaluate the implementation, sustainability, scale-up, and impacts of MH practices using mixed methods. Analyses may include descriptive and comparative statistics, correlations, structural equations modeling (path analysis), and qualitative content or thematic analyses. Objective 3 will draw on the framework of Ziam et al to assess knowledge mobilization strategies. A developmental evaluation approach and convergent mixed methods design within a case study will be used to assess the OSMHHE's implementation and impacts. Qualitative data will include semistructured individual and group interviews with OSMHHE members, addressing topics such as roles, decision-making processes, facilitators and barriers, and outcomes. Additional qualitative sources will include diverse documents (eg, meeting agendas, reports). Quantitative data will come from questionnaires completed by members examining levels of engagement and satisfaction, challenges and barriers, and impacts of the OSMHHE's activities and knowledge mobilization practices. Qualitative data will be analyzed using content analyses. Quantitative data will be examined using descriptive, comparative, and correlational analyses. This project is funded from February 2023 to February 2028. The first provincial survey took place in November 2024, collecting data from 32,212 students in 77 HE institutions. Analyses are underway, and a first report was released in November 2025. Approximately 20 student MH practices are currently being evaluated. The OSMHHE provincial survey will provide portraits of students' MH in HE in Quebec and its determinants to better guide MH practices and institutional decision-making. Evaluating MH practices will advance knowledge of their effectiveness. Assessing the implementation of the OSMHHE will help deepen our understanding of knowledge mobilization infrastructures designed to support student MH in HE.

Mental Health in Higher Education, a project of the Higher Education Academy, aims to enhance learning and teaching about mental health in UK higher education. This article introduces the Mental Health in Higher Education website which has recently been relaunched. It outlines its key role in the development of our emerging community of practice.

Due to the nature of the demanding working circumstances, most academicians at higher education institutions have therefore been vulnerable to experiencing mental health issues. This present study aims to investigate the prominent factors that influence academics' mental health in higher education through systematic reviews. In detail, this study is intended to analyze the trends, patterns, and knowledge gaps on the factors affecting mental health. Using the PRISMA protocol to identify and analyze datasets from the Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, Google Scholar, and Science Direct. In this present study, twenty-one papers were selected and analyzed. The findings indicate a robust influence of job demand on mental health among academicians in higher education. These review papers reveal that there is an increasing amount of research on the factors influencing the mental health of academicians in higher education. The findings highlight a worrying pattern of increasing job pressures and an increase in the frequency of mental health issues among academicians. Thus, there is a critical need for focused treatments and academic support networks to mitigate the increasing demands placed on faculty members and protect their mental health. This study contributes to the literature by focusing on mental health, primarily the job demands of academicians in the context of higher education institutions.

The issue of student mental health in higher education is growing. The COVID-19 pandemic has greater focus on this vulnerable group. This study aims to give a comprehensive assessment of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of university students. 200 students participated in a survey by using the GAD-7 and PHQ-9 screening tests to assess the state of mental health of Malaysian university students. The data was analysed using quantitative methods. The IBM Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) version 27.0 assessment of mental health revealed that 44.0% of such 88 students were experiencing mild anxiety symptoms. During this COVID-19 outbreak, 74 students (37.0%) experienced mild depressive symptoms at a greater level. Significant findings, however, revealed that 25 students (12.50%) and 24 students (12.00%), respectively, suffer from severe anxiety and depressive symptoms. A significant correlation of at least r=0.147 exists between the students' level of anxiety, depression, and duration of the students staying alone or away from their families. These findings have encouraged the researcher to propose a model for mitigating mental health issues among university students for consideration by universities.

Mental health is a somewhat taboo topic in academia. As Katie Rose Guest Pryal, a bipolar and autistic author and academic, writes in her new book A Light in the Tower: A New Reckoning with Mental Health in Higher Education (available now from University Press of Kansas), “Based on the logic of academia, if my brain is wrong, then everything about me is wrong.” She argues that mental disability is stigmatized in higher education and pushed into the shadows and that the key solution to the mental disability crisis — Pryal's preferred terminology — is to increase accessibility overall rather than just provide accommodations for faculty and students. This can decrease the stigma around their illnesses.

Mental health is a somewhat taboo topic in academia. As Katie Rose Guest Pryal, a bipolar and autistic author and academic, writes in her new book A Light in the Tower: A New Reckoning with Mental Health in Higher Education (University Press of Kansas), “Based on the logic of academia, if my brain is wrong, then everything about me is wrong.” She argues that mental disability is stigmatized in higher education and pushed into the shadows and that the key solution to the mental disability crisis — Pryal's preferred terminology — is to increase accessibility overall rather than just provide accommodations for faculty and students. This can decrease the stigma around their illnesses.

Mental health is a somewhat taboo topic in academia. As Katie Rose Guest Pryal, a bipolar and autistic author and academic, writes in her new book A Light in the Tower: A New Reckoning with Mental Health in Higher Education (University Press of Kansas), “Based on the logic of academia, if my brain is wrong, then everything about me is wrong.” She argues that mental disability is stigmatized in higher education and pushed into the shadows and that the key solution to the mental disability crisis — Pryal's preferred terminology — is to increase accessibility overall rather than just provide accommodations for faculty and students. This can decrease the stigma around their illnesses.

Mental health is a somewhat taboo topic in academia. As Katie Rose Guest Pryal, a bipolar and autistic author and academic, writes in her new book A Light in the Tower: A New Reckoning with Mental Health in Higher Education (University Press of Kansas), “Based on the logic of academia, if my brain is wrong, then everything about me is wrong.” She argues that mental disability is stigmatized in higher education and pushed into the shadows and that the key solution to the mental disability crisis — Pryal's preferred terminology — is to increase accessibility overall rather than just provide accommodations for faculty and students. This can decrease the stigma around their illnesses.

Mental health is a somewhat taboo topic in academia. As Katie Rose Guest Pryal, a bipolar and autistic author and academic, writes in her new book A Light in the Tower: A New Reckoning with Mental Health in Higher Education (available now from University Press of Kansas), “Based on the logic of academia, if my brain is wrong, then everything about me is wrong.” She argues that mental disability is stigmatized in higher education and pushed into the shadows and that the key solution to the mental disability crisis — Pryal's preferred terminology — is to increase accessibility overall rather than just provide accommodations for faculty and students. This can decrease the stigma around their illnesses.

Mental health is a somewhat taboo topic in academia. As Katie Rose Guest Pryal, a bipolar and autistic author and academic, writes in her new book A Light in the Tower: A New Reckoning with Mental Health in Higher Education (available now from University Press of Kansas), “Based on the logic of academia, if my brain is wrong, then everything about me is wrong.” She argues that mental disability is stigmatized in higher education and pushed into the shadows and that the key solution to the mental disability crisis — Pryal's preferred terminology — is to increase accessibility overall rather than just provide accommodations for faculty and students. This can decrease the stigma around their illnesses.

There is an increasing call to attend to the needs of students in distress (Reynolds, 2013). Furthermore, research has begun to highlight links between distress, risky, or dangerous behaviors as well as issues in mental health in the higher education population (Deasy, Coughlan, Pironom, Jourdan, & Mannix-McNamara, 2014). The National Alliance on Mental Health and the Jed Foundation (National Alliance on Mental Illness & the Jed Foundation, 2016) estimate that about 20% of enrolled college students will face some type of mental illness. As such, the work of mental health professionals, which has been increasing with time, will continue to play a pivotal role on today's campus (Kitzrow, 2009). Yet mental health in higher education is too pervasive and significant of a topic for counseling and psychological centers to handle by themselves (Joint Task Force in Student Learning, 1998; Mitchell et al., 2012). Therefore, a collaborative approach is warranted as higher education professionals strive to meet the increasing mental health demands of the student population. Case studies amalgamated from housing and residence life professionals are used to gain a greater understanding of how interdepartmental work is carried out without compromising or breaching ethical or legal regulations as set by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, and/or organizational standards like that of the International Association of Counseling Services Inc. (International Association for Counseling Services Inc., 2014) Specifically, the cases demonstrate ways inter- and intradepartmental staffers can work as a team, safeguard private and confidential information, and concurrently create an environment in which care is nurtured. (PsycINFO Database Record

This chapter critically examines the institutional support systems aimed at supporting the mental health of students within the University of Namibia. The shift from childhood to adulthood brings with it special difficulties, leaving students open to a range of stresses that can negatively impact their mental health. This research examines common mental health problems among students, such as stress and anxiety, with a particular focus at the University of Namibia. The study highlights the necessity of an all-encompassing strategy that considers social, emotional, and intellectual aspects in order to create an environment where students can flourish both academically and mentally. This chapter adds to the continuing conversation on mental health in higher education by advocating for additional improvements and identifying successful initiatives. This chapter adds to the continuing conversation on mental health in higher education by advocating for additional improvements and identifying successful initiatives.

This study reports short-term outcome evaluation results of a school-based peer counseling (PRC) program as implemented by North Forsyth High School during January 1990-February 1991. The PRC program is evaluated in terms of: 1) the content of the program as evaluated by the PRC trainees; 2) the quality of the PRC instructor as perceived by these trainees; 3) several instrumental objectives deduced from the PRC training program; and 4) the degree to which the program was able to reach other students at North Forsyth during the time the PRC was in operation. In the absence of a control group, the treatment effect of the program is determined in terms of individual growth curve models. Through the multiple evaluation designs employed in this research, it has been learned that a significantly larger proportion of students in the PRC group had more favorable attitude toward the content of the PRC program when compared to the content of what they learned from their regular school curricula. Furthermore, a significantly larger proportion of students in the PRC program reported more favorable attitude toward their instructor than their regular school teachers. The PRC program was able to elicit an improvement of trainee self-esteem (p less than .01) and their social values (p less than .05) between pre and post of the Peer Training Evaluation Instrument. In terms of client access, 18.4 percent of the totality of potential clients at North Forsyth have been reached through sixty-one peer counselors sanctioned by the school.

This review of the recent literature highlights the need to better define the role of faculty in supporting student mental health in higher education institutions in the United States. The last several decades, and especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, has seen an emphasis on college student mental health. While students are seeking knowledge, connectedness, and career options, faculty are focused on teaching, mentorship but also on how to best support student mental health. With this rise of concentration on mental health in higher education, a major question has arisen-what is the role of faculty in supporting student mental health? The literature is vast in terms of college student mental health and students' stressors and concerns. More and more literature is available regarding interventions used to identify, manage and treat students, and even studies on staff and faculty and their own mental health. Much of the data from faculty has recently been about burnout and their own mental health. There is, however, much less research and literature on either guidelines or guideposts regarding the specific roles that faculty have towards supporting student mental health. This brief paper highlights the potential opportunities and barriers and suggests model strategies for higher education leaders, administrators and faculty to better define the faculty role in supporting student mental health.