January 14th, 2020
The Center for Collegiate Mental Health, a research network of over 620 colleges and universities housed at Penn State, released their 11th annual summary of mental health trends among U.S. and international students. For the 2019 report, the CCMH studied 207,818 unique college students who sought mental health treatment, 4,059 clinicians, and more than 1,580,951 appointments.
According to Penn State News, the report demonstrates the following:
- “As assessed by clinicians, anxiety and depression continue to be the most common general or top concerns experienced by students. However, the growth of anxiety and depression has slowed over the past year, while trauma, as both a general and top concern, has increased over the past six years.
- “The self-reported lifetime prevalence rates of “threat to-self” characteristics increased for the ninth year in a row among students receiving counseling services.
- “The rate of students who report having prior counseling (56%) has trended upwards over the last four years. The number of students who have taken a medication for psychological reasons slightly increased in the past year, and hospitalization for mental health concerns decreased slightly.
- “Average rates of student self-reported anxiety and depression increased over the past eight years. In the past two years, eating concerns has increased, while family distress has increased over the past 4 years. Academic distress, hostility and substance use have remained flat or slightly decreased over the past several years.”
The full report can be found online at http://ccmh.psu.edu/publications/.