Call for universities to aid student mental health efforts

The Deutsches Studentenwerk (DSW – German Student Welfare Service) has called on universities to join it in tackling a “mental health crisis” among students and has demanded that German federal and state governments provide long-term financial support to do so.

Addressing an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of psychological counselling services for students provided by the University of Kassel Studentenwerk (student services organisation), DSW President Beate Schücking pointed to a “drastic increase in demand for psychological counselling among student services organisations throughout Germany.

Gone were the days of studying as an inspiring phase full of the joys of life, she said. Pointing to various political, economic, health and climate-related crises around the world, she said students were now in crisis mode.

Schücking maintained that multiple crises were “leading to an enhanced perception of stress among many students”.

Whereas psychological counselling used to focus mainly on issues clearly related to studying, such as procrastination, coping with stress or organising studies, nowadays, handling anxiety disorders and depressed moods were the predominant symptoms addressed in psychological counselling, she said.

Citing statistics from the German Student Social Survey (Die wirtschaftliche und soziale Lage der Studierenden) published in May 2023, Schücking said 16% of all students state that they are affected by health impairments, out of which 65% are mental diseases.

The share of students taking anti-depressants prescribed rose by 30% from 2019 to 2022, she said, citing the Techniker-Krankenkasse – Gesundheitsreport 2023 (Health Report of the Techniker-Krankenkasse, a major German health insurer). In addition, students were receiving anti-depressants significantly more often than gainfully employed people of the same age.

Increased demand for counselling

According to Schücking, these developments have led to an enormous increase in demand among students for psychological counselling services but students seeking counselling have to reckon with a long wait.

In Schleswig-Holstein, Germany’s northernmost federal state, for example, students got an appointment after around six weeks of waiting on average in peak periods in 2019, after 10 weeks in 2020, and after more than 14 weeks in 2021. However, special funding provided by the state governments to address the problem has since significantly shortened waiting times.

Schücking set out various options to improve the overall situation. “Resilience among students has to be raised by targeted measures and low-threshold programmes which ensure their mental health and wellbeing over a longer period,” she said.

“If we want to make tomorrow’s campus a lively and attractive place for people to get together, universities and student services organisations have to join forces to tackle this mental health crisis.

“I therefore call on the federal and state governments to provide long-term funding for the psychological counselling centres of the universities and student services organisations.”

Schücking maintained that necessary measures will require EUR10 million (US$10.8 million) of federal and state government support.

Student surveys

According to a DSW survey covering 2021, factors triggering stress among students include a greater workload, lack of contact with fellow students and teaching staff, and the loss of part-time jobs, or a reduction in working hours of part-time jobs, which many students depend on.

In a survey conducted by Leipzig University Clinic in spring 2022 among nearly 5,500 students in the eastern state of Saxony, almost two thirds of those interviewed referred to clinically relevant signs of mental disease, including depression symptoms (35.5%) and anxiety disorders (31.1%).

Almost a fifth said they had thoughts of suicide – a significant rise compared to previous years. Here, scientists put the increase down to loneliness and social isolation during the COVID pandemic.