Universities need “immediate improvements” to ensure students get the mental health care they need, according to a new survey.
Of 7,200 students surveyed by the Humen charity, nearly half believed that mental health issues negatively impacted their college experience.
The research also found that only 4% of employees received “adequate training”.
Support should be “as valuable” as academic results, says River Hawkins, founder of Humen.
The mental health charity’s survey of 80 universities found that 57% of students have used the mental health services offered by their university, with 47% saying difficulties have negatively impacted their experience.
“While it is encouraging to see a number of universities doing well in Humen’s university mental health league table, all universities need to make immediate improvements,” he added.
Daniel Banister started at the University of Edinburgh in September 2020 – the first year of the coronavirus pandemic – and suffered from anxiety.
“I thought there was something wrong with me, I’ve had issues in the past where I discovered there was something wrong with one of my eyes,” the 19-year-old physics student told Radio 1 Newsbeat.
He says Covid has “completely overloaded my brain in a weird way” and he’s started to think “there’s something wrong with me”.
He feels his mental health issues “definitely made me do less” at university.
According to Humen’s data, 73% of men attempted to access university services when struggling with their mental health.
However, only 19% of male students were diagnosed with a mental illness by a medical professional.
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Daniel has contacted his university and says they sent helpful emails – but that it was often “a few days” later than the help his parents gave him.
Instead, he received help outside of university – with cognitive behavioral therapy – a treatment aimed at reducing the symptoms of various mental illnesses.
“The doctors have shown me that there is a very small chance that something else is wrong with my eye.
“There’s a higher probability that I thought about it and almost made it true.”
Ellie McNicol feels that her mental health “had a negative impact” on her college experience, with her biggest struggle being loneliness.
She also studied during the pandemic when classes were mostly online.
“Not being able to meet the people in your class or other people around you. The social aspect was gone for a year and a half,” says the 21-year-old.
“Most of the teaching was online and so was freshman week. It was quite difficult meeting new people and we got stuck on our flat bubbles.”
“That touched me more than anything.”
Ellie started her university in 2020 initially with a sports rehabilitation degree at UWE Bristol before moving into nursing.
“If I were trying to join a group now, I would probably be a lot more afraid to go to a group of people who already know each other.”
She feels she was “lucky with the people” she was with and with her family who were around her.
Ellie says UWE has been “very good” with her care as they have given her a health call every month.
“But there is still more that can be done and reporting mental health issues would be easier if there was a real person to talk to.”
“It’s difficult to miss text, and in person you see the big picture. It can be as simple as typing in your feelings and then just hitting backspace.”
Daniel agrees that “personal” support is important and can make “a huge difference” to people.
“More and more people are hearing about it and realizing that maybe I have it too. And then they talk about it too,” he adds.
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