‘Mental disorders among college students in the World Health Organization World Mental Health Surveys’ by R. P. Auerbach, J. Alonso, W. G. Axinn, P. Cuijpers, D. D. Ebert, J. G. Green, I. Hwang11,R. C. Kessler, H. Liu, P. Mortier, M. K. Nock, S. Pinder-Amaker, N. A. Sampson,S. Aguilar-Gaxiola, A. Al-Hamzawi, L. H. Andrade, C. Benjet, J. M. Caldas-de-Almeida, K. Demyttenaere, S. Florescu, G. de Girolamo, O. Gureje, J. M. Haro, E. G. Karam, A. Kiejna, V. Kovess-Masfety, S. Lee, J. J. McGrath, S.O’Neill, B.-E. Pennell, K. Scott, M. ten Have, Y. Torres, A. M. Zaslavsky, Z. Zarkov and R. Bruffaerts in (2016) 46
Psychological Medicine 2955–2970 comments
Although mental disorders are significant predictors of educational attainment throughout the entire educational career, most research on mental disorders among students has focused on the primary and secondary school years. The World Health Organization World Mental Health Surveys were used to examine the associations of mental disorders with college entry and attrition by comparing college students (n= 1572) and non-students in the same age range(18–22 years; n= 4178), including non-students who recently left college without graduating (n= 702) based on surveys in 21countries (four low/lower-middle income, five upper-middle-income, one lower-middle or upper-middle at the times of two different surveys, and 11 high income). Lifetime and 12-month prevalence and age-of-onset of DSM-IV anxiety, mood, behavioral and substance disorders were assessed with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). One-fifth (20.3%) of college students had 12-month DSM-IV/CIDI disorders; 83.1% of these cases had pre-matriculation onsets. Disorders with pre-matriculation onsets were more important than those with post-matriculation onsets in predicting subsequent college attrition, with substance disorders and, among women, major depression the most important such disorders. Only 16.4% of students with 12-month disorders received any 12-month healthcare treatment for their mental disorders. Mental disorders are common among college students, have onsets that mostly occur prior to college entry, in the case of pre-matriculation disorders are associated with college attrition, and are typically untreated. Detection and effective treatment of these disorders early in the college career might reduce attrition and improve educational and psychosocial functioning.
The authors state that
Although prevalence (Costello et al.2005; Merikangas et al. 2009) and treatment (Fazel et al. 2014a,b) of mental disorders among elementary and secondary school students has been the subject of considerable attention, less is known about mental disorder prevalence or treatment among college students other than in the USA (Eisenberg et al. 2007; Blancoet al. 2008; Choet al. 2015; Kendler et al. 2015; Mojtabaiet al. 2015). We know somewhat more about the associations of early-onset mental disorders with significant reductions in subsequent educational attainment (Kessler et al.1995; Fergusson & Horwood,1998; Johnson et al.1999;Miechet al.1999; Woodward & Fergusson, 2001; Fergusson & Woodward,2002; Fletcher,2008; Lee et al. 2009; Mojtabai et al.2015), but this work is limited by either being based on small restricted samples or by being subject to long-term recall bias. Given the importance of an educated workforce for the human capital potential of a country, it would be valuable to know more about five questions. First, what is the prevalence of mental disorders among college students? Second, what proportion of those disorders had onsets prior to college entry? Third, to what extent are disorders with pre-matriculation onsets associated with college entry? Fourth, what is the relative importance of disorder with pre-matriculation and post-matriculation onsets in predicting college attrition? Fifth, what proportion of college students with mental disorders receives treatment? We address these five questions using data from community epidemiological surveys carried out in 21different countries in the World Health Organization (WHO) World Mental Health (WMH) Survey Initiative.
