Health Services For College Students Research Articles

The relationship between stress, anxiety and eating behavior among Chinese students: a cross-sectional study.

The expansion of higher education and the growing number of college students have led to increased awareness of mental health issues such as stress, anxiety, and eating disorders. In China, the educational system and cultural expectations contribute to the stress experienced by college students. This study aims to clarify the role of anxiety as a mediator in the relationship between stress and eating behaviors among Chinese college students. This study utilized data from the 2021 Psychology and Behavior Investigation of Chinese Residents, which included 1,672 college students under the age of 25. The analysis methods comprised descriptive statistics, t-tests, Pearson correlation analyses, and mediation effect analysis. The findings indicate that Chinese college students experience high levels of stress, with long-term stress slightly exceeding short-term stress. Both types of stress were positively correlated with increased anxiety and the adoption of unhealthy eating behaviors. Anxiety was identified as a significant mediator, accounting for 28.3% of the relationship between long-term stress and eating behavior (95% CI = 0.058-0.183). The mediation effect of short-term stress on eating behavior through anxiety was also significant, explaining 61.4% of the total effect (95% CI = 0.185-0.327). The study underscores the importance of stress management and mental health services for college students. It recommends a comprehensive approach to reducing external pressures, managing anxiety, and promoting healthy eating behaviors among college students. Suggestions include expanding employment opportunities, providing career guidance, enhancing campus and societal support for holistic development, strengthening mental health services, leveraging artificial intelligence technologies, educating on healthy lifestyles, and implementing targeted health promotion programs.

Research on virtual entertainment robots based on machine learning algorithms providing psychological health services for college students

In modern society, college students are facing increasing psychological pressure and mental health problems. In this context, virtual entertainment robots have become a promising form of mental health services, which can utilize machine learning algorithms to provide personalized psychological support and guidance by analyzing a large amount of psychological data and user information. Study the use of sample calculation and screening methods to determine the number of samples and perform feature selection to improve algorithm performance. Then analyze the detection effect and evaluate the effectiveness of the algorithm. By designing the architecture of a virtual entertainment robot and adopting anti-interference strategies to ensure that the robot can accurately recognize mental health information, text recognition technology was implemented, its effectiveness was evaluated, and further multi-source information recognition was carried out to improve recognition accuracy. Finally, a psychological health evaluation system for college students was constructed, and corresponding psychological health service strategies were proposed to meet the needs of college students. The results of this study indicate that virtual entertainment robots based on machine learning algorithms can effectively provide mental health services, providing support and guidance for the mental health problems of college students.

Association between Current Substance Use, Healthy Behaviors, and Depression among Ukrainian College Students.

Depression is a pervasive issue among college students worldwide, yet there is a significant gap in the literature regarding its prevalence and coping strategies in the Ukrainian context. The present study aims to fill this gap by investigating how substance use and health-promoting behaviors relate to depressive symptoms among Ukrainian college students. Health-promoting behaviors are an important strategy to prevent depression, whereas substance use can contribute to depression or make it harder to manage. Given the substantial psychosocial problems and stressors related to the ongoing war in Ukraine and the limited availability of mental health services for college students, it is important to understand how we can encourage college students to keep themselves mentally healthy. A cross-sectional study was conducted among college students on 10 campuses in 2018. Almost 16% of participants met a cut-off for depression. Female students and those who were older reported significantly higher depressive symptoms. Participants were more likely to report depressive symptoms if they were more often involved with alcohol and cannabis use, were older, and engaged in fewer health-promoting behaviors. Tobacco use was not significantly associated with depressive symptoms. Our findings suggest a moderate prevalence of depressive symptoms in our study population. We recommend implementing balanced public health interventions that address risk factors (such as substance use) while also promoting protective behaviors and can be tailored to the specific cultural and environmental context of the region.

Interpersonal Psychotherapy for College Students (IPT-CS): Feasibility, Acceptability, and Effectiveness of Group Modality

ABSTRACT Despite college students’ high rates of depression, a large treatment gap remains in which many students in need are not receiving evidence-based care. This pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT) delivered a novel adaptation of Interpersonal Psychotherapy for College Students (IPT-CS) in group modality at a college counseling center. Of 97 students expressing interest, 18 with mild to moderate depression were randomized to IPT-CS or referral-to-usual-care. The nine who initiated IPT-CS treatment had an average 96.67% attendance rate across 10 sessions and rated IPT-CS as satisfactory and accessible. Facilitators also rated IPT-CS as satisfactory, feasible, and faithful to IPT. Group-by-time analyses indicated that IPT-CS, compared to referral-to-usual-care, yielded a pattern of medium to large effects for depression, anxiety, quality of life, social adjustment and support, interpersonal concerns overall, and disconnection/loneliness specifically. As the pilot trial was powered to detect quite large effects, group-by-time analyses only reached statistical significance for depression and social support, as did within-group analyses for quality of life and interpersonal concerns overall. Importantly, reductions in depression and anxiety were clinically significant, dropping from moderate at pre-intervention to mild/no signs at post-intervention. These findings have implications for improving the accessibility, reach, and impact of effective mental health services for college students.

Stuck in a cul de sac of care: Therapy Assistance Online and the platformization of mental health services for college students

Many reports indicate higher education counseling centers are finding it difficult to keep pace with the growing rates of stress, anxiety, depression, and sleeping difficulties in undergraduate populations. Some universities are turning to telepsychology, or means of providing mental health care through videoconferencing, software, and other digital tools. This article analyzes one such platform, therapy assistance online (TAO), through a critical walkthrough of the platform’s self-help modules to consider how they communicate and construct care as individual labor which generates data for the platform. We argue that by removing traces of the therapist’s body and, in turn, dialogic communication, the platform produces modes of neoliberal self-care operationalized through data extraction, where the individual user works through modules while providing personal information to the platform. While TAO is offered as a solution to overcrowded and understaffed care facilities, it demonstrates some limitations of relying on third-party platforms to care for students.

College Student Perspectives of Telemental Health: a Review of the Recent Literature.

Purpose of ReviewWe review the recent literature regarding college student experiences with and attitudes toward telemental health (TMH). We examine their perspectives of the advantages and drawbacks to this form of mental healthcare and their willingness to engage in TMH.Recent FindingsCollege students view TMH as convenient, accessible, easy to use, and helpful. TMH helps to overcome the barrier of stigma associated with seeking mental health treatment. Despite positive reviews, many students find a lack of customization or connection to the provider to be drawbacks to some forms of TMH. Willingness to engage in TMH varies based on prior experience with mental health treatment, ethnicity, and severity of symptoms.SummaryThe recent literature highlights the potential for TMH to play a key role in mental health services for college students. It also highlights some of its shortcomings, which are indicative of the continued need for in-person services. Future studies should continue to track college student perspectives toward and utilization of TMH.

Designing Mental Health Technologies that Support the Social Ecosystem of College Students.

The last decade has seen increased reports of mental health problems among college students, with college counseling centers struggling to keep up with the demand for services. Digital mental health tools offer a potential solution to expand the reach of mental health services for college students. In this paper, we present findings from a series of design activities conducted with college students and counseling center staff aimed at identifying needs and preferences for digital mental health tools. Results emphasize the social ecosystems and social support networks in a college student's life. Our findings highlight the predominant role of known peers, and the ancillary roles of unknown peers and non-peers (e.g., faculty, family) in influencing the types of digital mental health tools students desire, and the ways in which they want to learn about mental health tools. We identify considerations for designing digital mental health tools for college students that take into account the identified social factors and roles.

Decreasing Depression and Anxiety in College Youth Using the Creating Opportunities for Personal Empowerment Program (COPE).

College is a time of major transition in the lives of many young adults. Roughly 30% of college students have reported that anxiety and depressive symptoms negatively affect their lives and academic functioning. Currently, anxiety has surpassed depression as the reason college students seek help at counseling centers. Unfortunately, only one third of students receive treatment for anxiety and only 25% of students receive treatment for their depression. The objectives of this pilot project were to (a) assess levels of depression and anxiety in identified "at risk" college students who present to the college Student Health Services (Primary Care), (b) implement a new cognitive behavioral therapy-based intervention titled "Creating Opportunities for Personal Empowerment" (COPE), and (c) evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention on students' levels of depression and anxiety as well as satisfaction with the intervention. A one group pre- and post-test design was used. Students who received COPE demonstrated clinically meaningful improvement in depressive and anxiety symptoms as measured by the Beck Depression Inventory-II and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. COPE is an effective brief program for reducing depression and anxiety in college-age youth. Implementation of evidenced-based programs into the college experience could lead to less severe depression and anxiety and better academic performance, ultimately increasing the likelihood of students successfully completing their academic programs.

Do College Students Use Online Self-Help? A Survey of Intentions and Use of Mental Health Resources

ABSTRACTOnline self-help may help increase the reach of mental health services for college students, but little research has examined students’ actual interest/use of these resources. An online survey of 389 college students examined intentions and use of online mental health resources as compared with other support options. Findings indicated the highest intentions/use of informal supports (e.g., parents, friends) for mental health problems and lowest intentions/use for online self-help. However, a subset of students showed a preference for online self-help over other forms of support. Participants were also more likely to request online self-help resources (21%) than in-person therapy resources (9%) when offered these options. Reported barriers were also identified for using mobile applications (apps) specifically (e.g., stigma, credibility, privacy). Overall, results suggest mixed findings and relatively low interest for use of online self-help among college students, while highlighting potential barriers that might be addressed to increase engagement.

College student health in the 21st century.

The first college student health services were developed in the early to mid-1800s. The Cadet Hospital was built by West Point in 1830 primarily in response to respiratory illnesses that ran rife through the Academy each winter.1 The hospital not only provided care for ill students but also allowed them to be separated from the general student population. The role of similar infirmaries in preventing the spread of disease among students was likely a primary driver of the development of college student health programs in the 19th century. A more comprehensive model was developed by Amherst College in 1861 after the college president expressed concern about the large numbers of students who had to leave school due to illnesses and observed that “students of our colleges have bodies which need care and culture as well as the intellectual and moral powers and which need this care at the same time with higher … Address correspondence to Terrill Bravender MD, MPH, 1540 East Hospital Dr, Ann Arbor, MI 48109. E-mail: tdbrave{at}umich.edu

Prevalence of suicidal ideation in Chinese college students: a meta-analysis.

BackgroundAbout 1 million people worldwide commit suicide each year, and college students with suicidal ideation are at high risk of suicide. The prevalence of suicidal ideation in college students has been estimated extensively, but quantitative syntheses of overall prevalence are scarce, especially in China. Accurate estimates of prevalence are important for making public policy. In this paper, we aimed to determine the prevalence of suicidal ideation in Chinese college students.Objective and MethodsDatabases including PubMed, Web of Knowledge, Chinese Web of Knowledge, Wangfang (Chinese database) and Weipu (Chinese database) were systematically reviewed to identify articles published between 2004 to July 2013, in either English or Chinese, reporting prevalence estimates of suicidal ideation among Chinese college students. The strategy also included a secondary search of reference lists of records retrieved from databases. Then the prevalence estimates were summarized using a random effects model. The effects of moderator variables on the prevalence estimates were assessed using a meta-regression model.Results A total of 41 studies involving 160339 college students were identified, and the prevalence ranged from 1.24% to 26.00%. The overall pooled prevalence of suicidal ideation among Chinese college students was 10.72% (95%CI: 8.41% to 13.28%). We noted substantial heterogeneity in prevalence estimates. Subgroup analyses showed that prevalence of suicidal ideation in females is higher than in males.ConclusionsThe prevalence of suicidal ideation in Chinese college students is relatively high, although the suicide rate is lower compared with the entire society, suggesting the need for local surveys to inform the development of health services for college students.

The Center for Collegiate Mental Health: An Example of a Practice-Research Network in University Counseling Centers

This article presents a model of a practice-research network that offers benefits for clinicians working at college and university counseling centers. We briefly describe the basic components of this practice-research network, challenges in developing it, and some of the empirical studies that have resulted from this initiative. We also describe possibilities for future research that not only will foster further collaborations between clinicians and researchers, but also will enhance our ability to understand and improve mental health services for college students.

Women physicians and the cultures of medicine

When Elizabeth Blackwell, daughter of an Ohio sugar refiner, decided she wanted to become a doctor, she applied to 29 medical schools across the country. All rejected her because she was a woman. She was finally admitted to Geneva Medical College (now Hobart College) in New York, where it was rumored that her admission had been meant as something of a joke. In 1849, Blackwell, ranked first in her class, became the first woman to graduate from medical school in the United States. Today, more than 150 years later, nearly half of medical school students nationwide are female, and the influx of women physicians over the last quarter-century has changed both the face and character of medicine. Women physicians and the cultures of medicine, edited by Ellen S. More, Elizabeth Fee, and Manon Parry, comprises 12 essays, all but one written by women, that examine the wide-ranging experiences of women physicians in the United States, shedding light on their accomplishments and struggles from the mid-19th century to the present. The first section, “Performing gender, being a woman physician,” focuses on the overwhelming challenges faced by the first generations of women physicians entering the male-dominated field of medicine. Many spent a substantial part of their careers trying to convince others that there were no biological or intellectual barriers that should prevent women from practicing medicine. Mary Putnam Jacobi conducted a substantial amount of clinical research in the late 19th century that she hoped would prove that biological functions such as menstruation and childbearing were not obstacles for women wanting to enter traditionally male-dominated professions. Marie Zakrzewska, one of the most accomplished medical practitioners and educators of the 19th century, insisted that men and women did not differ anatomically or psychologically in any significant way (although she modified her position late in her career.) The middle section of the book deals with the personal challenges women physicians faced as they tried to make inroads into the traditional model of health-care professionalism. Although more women were entering the field of medicine in the early to mid-20th century, they still faced a masculine and often hostile culture. An insightful essay by Sandra Morgen links the growing acceptance of women physicians in the 1960s and 1970s with the women’s health movement, which encouraged women to take more control over their bodies and health care. My favorite piece, “Feminists fight the culture of exclusion in medical education,” by Naomi Rogers, chronicles the generation of activist women who attended medical school in the 1970s and 1980s. They demanded, and eventually received, more respect from their professors and fellow students. As I graduated from medical school in 1974 and was a student, resident, and then faculty member at four different medical schools during this time, I share many of the kinds of experiences discussed, including being told: that I should “stay home and take care of my children” (many times by many people); “we don’t need women in medical school because there aren’t enough ladies’ rooms”; and “we can’t have a woman on our board because then we wouldn’t be able to smoke cigars, drink brandy, and tell jokes after dinner.” In response I became determined, even early in my career, to do what I could to help other women advance in medicine. The final section, “Expanding the boundaries,” is the most problematic in the book. It is composed of a brief group of essays dealing with everything from the growing number of women practicing homeopathic medicine to the evolution of health services for college students. While individually these essays are not without interest, they seemed to be thrown together simply because there was nowhere else in the book to put them. That said, Virginia Metaxas’s exploration of American medical women who carved out careers serving populations in crisis overseas recounts the stories of Esther Pohl Lovejoy and Ruth Parmelee, who provided medical aid to the war-torn nations of Greece and Turkey in the early 20th century, and is one of the most fascinating pieces in the book. The book’s conclusion analyzes the modern state of affairs for women physicians in the United States and their prospects for the future. This section draws heavily from the Women Physicians’ Health Study conducted in 1993 and 1994. The study found that while women practicing medicine today have overall found great career satisfaction, inequality still persists, particularly among African American and Hispanic women physicians. While Women physicians and the cultures of medicine doesn’t provide a major new perspective on the narrative of women in American medicine, it is a more than satisfactory introduction to that colorful history. This lively collection of essays will no doubt be enlightening to the current generation of medical students, historians, and scholars.

Citing Importance of Advocacy, Robinowitz Urges, 'Just Do It'

Citing Importance of Advocacy, Robinowitz Urges, 'Just Do It'

STUDENT HEALTH: CHALLENGES FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGES

Little has been written in the academic literature about community college student health services. Perhaps community college student health services have been overlooked because some leaders, such as presidents, trustees, and policy makers, are simply uninformed about the direct relevance of student health to the community college mission of student success. This article describes community colleges--historically, philosophically, and demographically--and makes a case that a true learning college, a college committed to student success, is one that is committed to a healthy climate for students and to student health. A policy agenda for community college student health programs is discussed in the context of leadership policy issues and individual college and consortia issues.

Survey of Contraceptive Services Available to College Students

Questionnaire were sent to 187 directors of college student health services; 71% returned usable replies. 3 sources of contraceptive services were identified: local family planning agencies, the student health service, and private physicians. It was found students had easy access to information, the pill, the IUD, over-the-counter methods, diaphragms, and referral services. Sterilizations were difficult to obtain and generally not available through a student health center. Every questionnaire noted that at least some contraceptive services were available, if not through the student health service, then through the family planning agency or a physician.

A New Model for College Student Health Services

(1974). A New Model for College Student Health Services. NASPA Journal: Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 6-9.