Depressed students overwhelm counselling services
Janice Tibbetts, Canwest News Service
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Amanda Pierce used to stuff a pack of blades in her backpack every morning so she could slice her skin whenever she felt the urge. Usually, it was two or three times a day.
"I cut myself wherever I had skin," recounts the University of Windsor student, who was diagnosed with a major depressive disorder when she was in high school.
Pierce, now 21, says she kicked her self-mutilation habit in her first year of university and has suffered only periodic depression relapses, most recently when her uncle killed himself last year.
Today, the fourth-year, social-work major is part of an emerging movement to bring awareness to mental illness on campus at a time when health-service directors say they're swamped with students who are showing up stressed out, anxious, or suffering from serious, long-term afflictions they brought with them to university.
"There certainly is a rise in mental-health issues on campus," says Patricia Whiting, director of health and counselling services at B.C.'s Simon Fraser University, which recently added a psychiatrist to its staff to cope with the increased demand.
"If you spoke to every counselling and health-services director in the country, you'd hear the same mantra; it's that consistent," added Mike Condra, in charge of mental-health services at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont.
"Mental-health disabilities are not the largest group, but they are the fastest growing group in most institutions, without a doubt."
At Queen's, the number of mental-health patients has tripled in the last decade, and that doesn't include the troubled students who are suffering in silence, Condra said. These days, the system is so strained, students can wait two or three months to see a psychiatrist after an initial screening to ensure they're not in immediate danger.
Treatments vary widely, but include medication, counselling, psychiatric help for extreme cases, and accommodating student requests for acute short-terms problems, such as allowing students stressed out by exams to write them in a private room rather than with a crowd, Condra said.
Although no firm statistics exist to show more Canadian students suffer from mental illness than before, universities rely on a U.S.-based National College Health Assessment of almost 24,000 students. Figures from the fall of 2006 showed 35 per cent of students felt so depressed in the preceding 12 months, they found it hard to function. Ten per cent reported they had "seriously considered" suicide.
Another U.S. study of more than 2,000 students at 40 campuses, conducted this month and last for the Associated Press, reported that 80 per cent of students said they felt stressed in their daily lives, and more than six in 10 struggled to motivate themselves. Only 20 per cent, however, said they would take advantage of mental-health services on campus.
Health-services directors on Canadian campuses say it's a hard time to be a student due to intense pressure for high marks and escalating living and tuition costs forcing many students to take part-time jobs.
"Students have such grandiose ideas as to what any one person can accomplish," said Melanie Drew, director of health services at Concordia University in Montreal.
Also, with greater awareness of mental illness in general, many students are already diagnosed with disorders before they reach university, she said.
But Stanley Kutcher, a mental-health expert at Dalhousie University in Halifax, disputes any assertions of an increase in mental illness on North American campuses.
He attributes the increased demand for treatment to more awareness of available help, and the inclination of more students to seek treatment simply when they're feeling blue.
"The bar is lower," Kutcher said. "People are often going for assistance for distress, as opposed to disorder. We're seeing the threshold change."
As a result, "universities are scrambling" to cope with their bigger role as a front-line defence on the mental-health front, he said.
"Universities aren't really funded to provide that service," he said. "The demand still outstrips the availability, and of course that's a problem."
Support groups are another on-campus tool:_Mental-health support groups, common on U.S. campuses, are also spawning small Canadian chapters, including the Washington-based support group Active Minds. Pierce helped set up the first one at the University of Windsor two years ago and students at Simon Fraser and Trent, in Peterborough, Ont., have since followed. At McGill University in Montreal, students recently established a group called Headspace.
Some schools report seeing a spike in mental-health problems among international students.
At the University of Windsor, where Pierce helped organize a mental-health drop-by booth last fall, most of the approximately 70 students who stopped by to complete a questionnaire were international, she said.
Whiting, of Simon Fraser, notes that a surge in foreign students in recent years could be contributing to increased demand for mental-health services, as they seek ways to cope with a new culture.
"Certainly, we are noticing there is quite a bit of stress for international students," she said.
Janice Tibbetts, Canwest News Service
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Amanda Pierce used to stuff a pack of blades in her backpack every morning so she could slice her skin whenever she felt the urge. Usually, it was two or three times a day.
"I cut myself wherever I had skin," recounts the University of Windsor student, who was diagnosed with a major depressive disorder when she was in high school.
Pierce, now 21, says she kicked her self-mutilation habit in her first year of university and has suffered only periodic depression relapses, most recently when her uncle killed himself last year.
Today, the fourth-year, social-work major is part of an emerging movement to bring awareness to mental illness on campus at a time when health-service directors say they're swamped with students who are showing up stressed out, anxious, or suffering from serious, long-term afflictions they brought with them to university.
"There certainly is a rise in mental-health issues on campus," says Patricia Whiting, director of health and counselling services at B.C.'s Simon Fraser University, which recently added a psychiatrist to its staff to cope with the increased demand.
"If you spoke to every counselling and health-services director in the country, you'd hear the same mantra; it's that consistent," added Mike Condra, in charge of mental-health services at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont.
"Mental-health disabilities are not the largest group, but they are the fastest growing group in most institutions, without a doubt."
At Queen's, the number of mental-health patients has tripled in the last decade, and that doesn't include the troubled students who are suffering in silence, Condra said. These days, the system is so strained, students can wait two or three months to see a psychiatrist after an initial screening to ensure they're not in immediate danger.
Treatments vary widely, but include medication, counselling, psychiatric help for extreme cases, and accommodating student requests for acute short-terms problems, such as allowing students stressed out by exams to write them in a private room rather than with a crowd, Condra said.
Although no firm statistics exist to show more Canadian students suffer from mental illness than before, universities rely on a U.S.-based National College Health Assessment of almost 24,000 students. Figures from the fall of 2006 showed 35 per cent of students felt so depressed in the preceding 12 months, they found it hard to function. Ten per cent reported they had "seriously considered" suicide.
Another U.S. study of more than 2,000 students at 40 campuses, conducted this month and last for the Associated Press, reported that 80 per cent of students said they felt stressed in their daily lives, and more than six in 10 struggled to motivate themselves. Only 20 per cent, however, said they would take advantage of mental-health services on campus.
Health-services directors on Canadian campuses say it's a hard time to be a student due to intense pressure for high marks and escalating living and tuition costs forcing many students to take part-time jobs.
"Students have such grandiose ideas as to what any one person can accomplish," said Melanie Drew, director of health services at Concordia University in Montreal.
Also, with greater awareness of mental illness in general, many students are already diagnosed with disorders before they reach university, she said.
But Stanley Kutcher, a mental-health expert at Dalhousie University in Halifax, disputes any assertions of an increase in mental illness on North American campuses.
He attributes the increased demand for treatment to more awareness of available help, and the inclination of more students to seek treatment simply when they're feeling blue.
"The bar is lower," Kutcher said. "People are often going for assistance for distress, as opposed to disorder. We're seeing the threshold change."
As a result, "universities are scrambling" to cope with their bigger role as a front-line defence on the mental-health front, he said.
"Universities aren't really funded to provide that service," he said. "The demand still outstrips the availability, and of course that's a problem."
Support groups are another on-campus tool:_Mental-health support groups, common on U.S. campuses, are also spawning small Canadian chapters, including the Washington-based support group Active Minds. Pierce helped set up the first one at the University of Windsor two years ago and students at Simon Fraser and Trent, in Peterborough, Ont., have since followed. At McGill University in Montreal, students recently established a group called Headspace.
Some schools report seeing a spike in mental-health problems among international students.
At the University of Windsor, where Pierce helped organize a mental-health drop-by booth last fall, most of the approximately 70 students who stopped by to complete a questionnaire were international, she said.
Whiting, of Simon Fraser, notes that a surge in foreign students in recent years could be contributing to increased demand for mental-health services, as they seek ways to cope with a new culture.
"Certainly, we are noticing there is quite a bit of stress for international students," she said.
