Posted: 05/02/07

College student stresses
The role of mental health on campus

Katie Robichaud | contributing writer
krobichaud@smcvt.edu

Take a look into an average college student's plan book: on Monday he or she has two five page papers due, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are jam packed and Friday holds a Spanish quiz and a math test. College students are constantly being pulled in several directions, and many become stressed, depressed, and anxious.

Pamphlets in Health Services offer solutions and symptoms to depression. (photo, Katie Robichaud)

College mental health

College students feeling depressed is not something uncommon. Nearly half of all college students report feeling so depresses at some point in time that they have trouble functioning, according to a 2004 survey by the American College Health Association.

Dr. Molly Millwood, assistant professor in the psychology department at St. Michael’s College, doesn’t see attending college in particular as the source of the mental problems or illness.

“I think that mental illness can arise more during any period of increase stress,” Millwood says, “The transition (of college) of physically moving away and growth and development can make a student more vulnerable.”

Common mental health problems for college age students are depression and anxiety, also people are at a high of risk for suicide throughout the ages of 15 to 24, Millwood says.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, symptoms of major depression are sadness, anxiety, insomnia, difficult concentrating, and irritability or excess crying.

Millwood says in talking to students about being stressed she constantly suggests on campus counseling. Although sometimes she says she is met with hesitation, she tries to normalize the counseling to the students.

Overall as a society and on a college level, Millwood says counseling is becoming more widely accepted.

When Millwood thinks a mental issue is visible she says it’s imperative and ethical to address it as a professor.

“It is crucial at a school like St. Michael’s to not let each other slip through the cracks, we rally around that person,” says Millwood, “that’s one of the qualities that make St. Michael’s wonderful.”

Campus counseling

St. Michael’s offers on campus counseling for students in the Student Resource Center located in the Klein Student Center. (photo, Katie Robichaud)

St. Michael’s offers on campus counseling for students in the Student Resource Center located in the Klein Student Center. All full time undergraduate students are allowed to go to the resource center; the counseling can be one-on-one or in a group.

“We see an average of 15 percent of the undergraduate student body each year,” Co-Director, Student Resource Center/Personal Counseling, Linda Hollingdale says.

Linda Hollingdale is one of three counselors at the resource center, Julia Wick and Dave Kells are the other counselors.

Lately there have been some new students since the Virginia Tech Massacre that want to talk about the shooting and several students already coming for counseling have talked about their thoughts and feeling in their sessions, Hollingdale says.

“Students have expressed sorrow, disbelief, anger, shock, sadness, and concern about violence in our world,” she says.

Also along with the counseling on campus, St. Michael’s will also prescribe medicine for students, Nurse Practitioner at St. Michael’s College's Health Services, Louise Rosales says.

Rosales says that anxiety and depression are the common student problems but they deal with many different things. She says they are mostly are prescribing antidepressants to students.

The University of Vermont has two locations for their counseling services on campus, the Jacobs office and the Redstone office. Between these two offices there are 11 counselors. Like St. Michael’s on campus counseling, the counseling is free for full time students at UVM.

In the Redstone office drug and alcohol counseling is done, Assistant Director of Clinical Services Linda Cade says. Many times students are mandated for one session because of on-campus violation.

The drug and alcohol program focuses on reduction of use, not fully abstaining. They also work with groups outside of campus like Alcoholics Anonymous, she says.

Cade has seen a growing trend in students arriving with diagnosed illness like bipolar, hallucinations, personality issues, and paranoia.

Students are also coming into the offices with eating disorders, such as binging and purging, and self mutilation.

“We have a growing need to meet the needs of the students,” Cade says.

The next step

Nurse Practitioner at St. Michael’s College's Health Services, Louise Rosales. (photo, Katie Robichaud)

Rosales recently wrote an article entitled “The Role of the Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner (NP) in the College Health Setting.”

In the article she wrote “The role of the nurse practitioner is to promote optimal mental health, including prevention, health maintenance, clinical management of mental and physical health problems, and the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders.”

Rosales is trying to bring physical and mental healthcare together. Currently St. Michael’s has two separate departments when it comes to healthcare. We have health services for the physical and the counseling for mental.

According to the National Survey of Counseling Center directors in 2006, 58 percent of schools surveyed offer psychiatric services on campus, Rosales wrote in her article.

In her research she found that 25 percent of counseling center clients are now on psychotropic medications, which was an increase of five percent from 2003.

Rosales feels that a Psychiatric NP on staff can have a positive influence on the campus.

She explains that the roles of the Psychiatric NP are counseling and medication management.

She sees having a Psychiatric NP can benefit the health of the students on campus, but also help financially. Students at St. Michael’s wouldn’t have to look out side of their own campus for psychiatric help.

Having a Psychiatric NP will benefit the greater community, Rosales says.