Exploring psychopathological distress in Italian university students seeking help: A picture from a university counselling service

Abstract

Psychological distress represents a longstanding issue that has been observed in university student populations. The present study aimed to explore the psychological distress in a group of university students seeking for psychological help available in an Italian University Counselling Service. Participants were 597 students (70.5% female, Mage = 24.79, SDage = 5.08) who consulted the Psychological Service at the University and completed the Adult Self-Report (ASR) questionnaire prior to a brief psychodynamic intervention (T1) and 372 of them (70.4% females, Mage = 24.85, SDage = 5.44) were re-evaluated on the same scales three months after the end of the intervention within a follow-up session. Findings demonstrated that students who dropped out at follow-up had slightly higher baseline scores in Thought Problems and Rule-Breaking Behavior. Adopting a Latent Change Score Difference (LDS) approach to model the differences between T1 and T2 scores in ASR scales, results showed an average significant and reliable decrease in all psychopathological syndromes, although the rate of this change was not uniform for all individuals (in the case of somatic complaints, this was partially accounted for by gender). Students reporting higher symptoms in three syndromes at T1 (i.e., somatic complaints, depressive symptoms, withdrawal) showed a steeper decrease of such scores at the follow-up. Findings suggest that a short-term psychological counselling intervention may represent an efficacious way to deal with emerging psychopathological distress within university contexts.