hundred sixty college students say the pandemic has become more difficult access to care mental health as well as financial tensions and the prevalence of increased depression among them, according to a new study on the impact of COVID-19 in the welfare of the student.
The study of Healthy Minds Network for Research on adolescents and young adults Mental Health and the American College Health Association reaped results of 18,764 students at 14 campuses. Researchers say that much of what they found is more confirmatory surprising, but with hard data will help schools make decisions about providing mental health and welfare services to students
Between the results:.
Mary Hoban, director of research at the American College Health Association, stressed that the data were collected during a window rather narrow between March and May, when the universities that had not been used telehealth before the pandemic I had to quickly put new telehealth systems in place. He said counseling centers college also had problems initially with licensing regulations at the state level which prohibits the provision of mental health services across state borders; Many of these regulations have been relaxed for the duration of the public health emergency.
Hoban expects the image access to mental health and the ability of the college counseling center will improve in the fall.
"does not mean that all challenges have been addressed, but we will have better systems in place for regulations licensing between states and the establishment of a new customer, a new patient ", said. "Those were things that were bigger challenges in the beginning."
At the same time, Hoban expressed concern about the potential of universities to cut spending on mental health services as they struggle with broader financial problems. Around 20 percent of institutions responding to a separate survey reported having ACHA unexpected staff reductions this summer.
Sarah Ketchen Lipson, co-principal investigator of national minds healthy study and assistant professor of health law, policy and management at Boston University, said the findings highlight the need for protection budgets for mental health and to ensure that students are aware of the resources available to them, including telehealth resources.
"The challenge we have is what we can do to increase access," said increase student understanding of the landscape of mental health, which is very different from how it looked before.
Lipson said teachers have an important role to play in caring for student welfare and referral to mental health services as needed. With students who have fewer interactions with peers, athletic trainers, personal life of the student, she said teachers have a greater role gatekeeping. He suggested that the ability to display information about mental health and wellness resources in their curricula and have time to talk about resources in your first class and stress points of the semester, and during midterms and finals.
Lipson also stressed the need for partnerships between counseling centers and campus financial aid offices in the light of stressful financial factors many students face.
David M. Arnold, assistant vice president for health, safety and well-being initiatives to NASPA, an association of student affairs administrators, echoed the idea that the responsibility of students mental health "it is not the sole responsibility of the counseling center and clinical staff."
"Data from this study may help inform what questions campus can be locally calling on the boats both service delivery and design to better accommodate students," Arnold said via email electronic. "The data also helps complete a picture of student needs beyond mental health. When they threatened basic needs (physiological, safety, security) are, threatening our mental health leads. feelings of economic uncertainty students may be the biggest threats campus can try to adjust ensuring continuity of employment of students, internships and other professional services. The survey also goes well to identify that there are no issues COVID-19 in the isolation of exposure and response of the public to systemic racial oppression, which is directly the material for mental health and social identity. "
