Increased Rates of Mental Health Service Utilization by U.S. College Students: 10-Year Population-Level Trends (2007–2017)
By S. Lipson, E. Lattie, D. Eisenberg. Psychiatric Services, 2018
820 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Objective: This study aimed to document population-level trends in mental health service utilization by college students. Methods: The study drew on 10 years of data from the Healthy Minds Study, an annual web-based survey, with a sample comprised of 155,026 students from 196 campuses. Analyses focused on past-year mental health treatment and lifetime diagnoses of a mental disorder. Changes in symptoms of depression and suicidal ideation and levels of stigma were hypothesized as potential explanatory factors. Results: Rates of treatment and diagnosis increased significantly. The rate of treatment increased from 19% in 2007 to 34% by 2017, while the percentage of students with lifetime diagnoses increased from 22% to 36%. The prevalence of depression and suicidality also increased, while stigma decreased. Conclusions: This study provides the most comprehensive evidence to date regarding upward trends in mental health service utilization on U.S. campuses over the past 10 years. Increasing prevalence of mental health problems and decreasing stigma help to explain this trend.
Subfields: Applied Psychology, General Health Professions, Social Psychology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/aaeb8e02864bfca3c0439ecd4c16a2ebd65fcc85
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Citations in the corpus
- College Students Mental Health Challenges: Concerns and Considerations in the COVID-19 Pandemic (2021, background): “In recent years, college students’ mental health has become a growing concern and a subject of much research (Alonso et al., 2019; American College Health Association, 2020; Auerbach et al., 2016; Lipson et al., 2019).”
- Digital Mental Health Interventions for Depression, Anxiety, and Enhancement of Psychological Well-Being Among College Students: Systematic Review (2018, neutral): “In the last decade, rising rates of college students experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety have been observed [1-3].”
- The social determinants of mental health and disorder: evidence, prevention and recommendations (2024, background): “In the US, the proportion of university students – typically aged 1822 years – who reported having been treated for mental health problems has risen from 19% in 2007 to 34% in 2017 20 .”