Mental health decreasing?

A student poses for a photo illustration on Wednesday about students and mental health issues. (CU Independent photo illustration/Patrick Ghidossi)

Feeling stressed? Overworked? A recent study shows college students’ stress may not be imaginary after all.

In a recent study conducted by San Diego State University, high school and college students were found to have five to eight times as many mental health problems due to anxiety and stress than the same age group did in 1938, according to a SDSU news release.

Jean Twenge, a SDSU psychology professor, led the study and reached the results after analyzing 77,576 high school or college student responses from 1938 to 2007 from students who took the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, according to the Associated Press.

The complete results will later be published in an issue of the Clinical Psychology Review, according to the Associated Press.

CU Boulder’s Counseling and Psychological Services Director Karen Raforth said she is also seeing the same trend.

“There has been a trend of more and more students at our doors and more people using our services and a technology, which fits with the Twenge study,” Raforth said. “There’s been an increase in mental health issues as well as increases in severity.”

In 2007, there were 364 first-time users of CAPS. That number jumped to 491 in 2009, Raforth said. Students also made 982 individual therapy appointments in 2007, which grew last year as well to 1,553.

While there are many varying factors the study also showed links to narcissism and depression, according to the SDSU article. CU psychology Professor Bob Spencer, who specializes in determining mechanisms of stress adaptations, said stressors that create a constant background stress are likely to affect mental health.

“Those are certainly factors that contribute to stress that lead to more of a chronic stress,” Spencer said. “Worrying about certain expectations that we put ourselves in, ones that are more continuous, is an aspect of stress that has been associated with risks for mental disorders for psychological problems.”

Raforth also noted that other factors may have led to the large jump in mental health issues.

“For example stigma is way more reduced…there’s less stigma of seeking help,” Raforth said.

Some students, like Natalie Proulx, said they feel that with better research, mental health issues are more easily recognized now than during the Great Depression.

“I think being able to be a little more aware has contributed to the jump,” said the 20-year-old junior English major. “There are different measures that people are turning to and people are more aware of what causes stress.”

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Rose Heaphy at [email protected].