An article this week in Canada's National Post newspaper says that
universities across Canada report increasing use of their mental health
counseling services in recent years. Queens University in Kingston, Ontario
says the number of patients seeking counseling has tripled in the past 10 years,
and Simon Fraser University, with three campuses in British Columbia, reports a
30% increase in one year alone.
Mike Condra, who heads counseling services at
Queens University, says mental health is the fastest growing problem faced by
his office, which also deals with academic issues, physical health, and student
disabilities. At Queens, campus counselors are still seeing new patients quickly
to determine if they are in immediate danger. But non-emergency follow-up visits
with a psychiatrist are backlogged for as long as three months. What worries
Condra further is that there are probably many more students who need help but
who aren't seeking treatment.
The problem apparently is not limited to Canada.
The article cites the 2006 National College Health
Assessment survey conducted on U.S. campuses that showed about a third (35%)
of students reported feeling depressed at least once in the previous year to
such an extent that they could not function. The survey also said about 10% of
respondents seriously considered suicide. Some 88% of the survey's respondents were
undergraduates.
The experts quoted in the article could not agree
on a cause for the increased demand. Melanie Drew, director of health
services at Concordia University in Montreal attributes much of the increase to
higher expectations and more financial pressures. A student in the social
work department (who was once a patient at the school's counseling facilities)
started a drop-in screening kiosk at Simon Fraser University. She says about 70
percent of her clients are international students, who face cross-cultural
problems on top of everything else.
But not all experts in the field, at least in
Canada, are convinced that the demand for services means more mental health
problems. Stanley Kutcher, a professor of psychiatry at Dalhousie University in
Halifax, Nova Scotia attributes the increased demand to rising awareness among
students that counseling is available and they are taking advantage of the
service. "People are often going for assistance for distress, as opposed to
disorder," says Kutcher. "The bar is lower."
As we've noted in Science Careers over the years,
even scientists can get the blues, including those in the U.K. and Belgium. If you think you need help, get help.
Let the counselors tell you there's nothing wrong.
Hat tip: Education
News
