What mental health problems are common among students?

Did you know?

Most emotional problems are mild and transient. They often arise in response to a situation or event. For example, very many students experience stress before an exam, and every student feels sad when they fall out with a friend. With mental disorders – such as an anxiety disorder or depression - the symptoms persist for a long time and have a marked impact on daily life and the environment.

On an annual basis, 46% of students at universities and universities of applied sciences screen positively for the criteria of one or more mental health problems.

Major depressive episode is the most prevalent problem: 35% screen positive within a 12-month perspective, followed by a positive screen for post-traumatic stress disorder 34%

27%

indicate that they have physically harmed themselves (burned, inflicted a wound, held a wound open, scratched themselves) in the past year, although without having the intention of wanting to die.

17%

Over the year, 17% have thought about suicide, 13% made a plan and just under 2% attempted suicide.

Not all mental health problems are serious:

  • When we look at the students who screen positive for at least one problem, 33% indicate that they experience no impact, or only a mild impact, from their mental health problems.
  • The critical group who have many psychological problems and experience a major impact from these mental health problems is estimated at about 5% of the Flemish students;

On average, mental health problems arise among students in higher education around the age of 15 to 16.

Positive screens for what are known as the ‘common mental disorders’ (anxiety, depression, alcohol-related problems) fluctuate in age of onset between roughly 15 and 16 years old.

The age of onset is significantly lower for students with psychotic symptoms (12 years old), positive screens for bipolar disorder (15 years old) and ADHD (14 years old),

The age of onset is higher for students with PTSD (17 years) and a substance problem not involving alcohol (18 years old).

Conclusions

  • Anxiety and depression are common among students, but at the same time we see a high prevalence of externalising/impulse-related problems (such as self-harm, eating problems and suicidality);
  • The critical group who have many psychological problems and experience a major impact from these mental health problems is estimated at about one in twenty Flemish students;
  • The average age of onset of mental health problems is 15. However, alcohol and substance problems as well as post-traumatic stress disorder have an age of onset of 18;
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Back to the results 2022-2023