Students must not be forgotten
Stress and anxiety are a common feature of uni student life. Yet the mental health of tertiary students is somewhat of a missing piece in youth mental health policy and resourcing in Australia.
Stepping into a new and unfamiliar environment with different rules and requirements can be daunting. Then throw in living away from home, financial stress, poor sleep and nutrition, drug and alcohol use — and competing social, work and study demands — and you could be staring mental health decline in the face.
One in four university students will experience mental ill health and those with greater socio-economic stress are more at risk. A national survey conducted by headspace reveals that more than 65 per cent of tertiary students, aged 16-25, are chronically stressed. And up to 35 per cent have, at some point, had thoughts of suicide or self-harm.
Research by youth mental health organisation, Orygen, found that university counselling and disability support services are experiencing demand increases across Australia. But it’s not only the shout out for support that is rising, the complexity and severity of mental health conditions across the tertiary student population is growing, too.
Despite this, the stigma of mental illness still plagues us and many students refrain from disclosing their battles or seeking help. This is worrying. Psychological distress can impact a student’s academic performance, lead to higher academic attrition and impact social and economic participation.
Local universities have been working hard to implement strategies that address student mental health and wellbeing and new approaches have been created in recent years. Ben Piggott, a lecturer in health and physical education at Notre Dame University, noticed an increasing number of students presenting with stress related issues: “We offer students pastoral care and counselling and we’re quite good in that regard. But there was more we could do to be proactive.”
His solution was to create a credited elective unit, Wellbeing Fundamentals for Success, incorporating physical wellbeing, mental wellbeing and personal development to help students prevent mental distress and improve health and performance.
The 13-week course, taught by Dr Piggott and Dr Jenny Conlon, provides students with evidence-based skills, techniques and resources in an experiential learning environment to build a solid foundation for personal wellbeing. The unit incorporates physical activity, recreation, yoga, mindfulness and creative expression, coping strategies, routine and habit formation hacks, self-leadership, emotional intelligence and communication skills. Students maintain a logbook, undertake self-assessment tasks, and develop a wellbeing plan as part of the final assessment.
Evaluations conducted by students in the unit focus on measures of stress, wellbeing, resilience and mindful attention. They have found that while stress increases during the semester, it later declines towards the end, and resilience is higher, overall. It demonstrates that courses such as this can help buffer students against the effects of psychological stress and improve mental health outcomes.
“We’re definitely having an influence, and we’re laying a foundation that students can continue to build on going forward,” Dr Piggott says. “If you want health strategies to be effective, you need to embed them in health education courses. My goal is to see courses like this in all post-secondary institutions.”
The step from school to university is significant. Students need a supportive environment, with access to the right knowledge and services to help facilitate the transition. Proactive and preventative health strategies such as accredited courses go a long way, and we ought to be teaching people wellbeing skills throughout their school and post-secondary student years to set them up for life.
This article was first published in The West Australian in Renée Gardiner’s weekly column in Agenda, 11 June 2022.