The mental health of Portuguese university students is not good: almost half (48%) show serious symptoms of a psychological nature, such as depression, anxiety or loss of control. These are the results of a survey carried out by RYSE, a youth association that is developing actions against burnout academic, and the National Association of Psychology Students, released this friday.
The survey sought to assess the state of mental health and well-being of Portuguese students. To do so, they were challenged to answer questions to do a self-assessment taking into account several dimensions — anxiety, depression, loss of control, emotional bonds and positive affect. 2084 students answered this questionnaire between October 19 and November 19, 2022.
This is a “screening tool”, which is not used to diagnose, stress the authors. The aim is to ascertain the “existence of possibly alarming symptoms” in order to carry out “an analysis and initial understanding of the psychological state of Portuguese university students”. And what it showed was “low mental health scores” among them.
Most affected girls
Girls seem to be more affected than boys, the numbers show. “Female participants have significantly lower levels of general psychological well-being than male individuals,” it reads. And not only is well-being lower, but psychological conditions are “more severe in all dimensions”, with the exception of that related to emotional ties.
At least 22.8% of the students who responded to this survey had already received a previous diagnosis of mental illness — and those who already had this information also had lower results “than those of subjects without any diagnosis” in the various dimensions under study.
Regarding the level of education, students who attend a degree revealed significantly lower values of psychological well-being than students who are part of a master’s degree. The results do not show significant differences between students displaced or living in the area of residence during the academic year, thus concluding that the psychological well-being of university students may not be significantly affected by these factors.
The report reads that the results “conform to the literature, since university students in various European countries, and around the world, demonstrate high levels of anxiety, psychological distress and depression, compared to the pre-pandemic norm”.
The authors offer some explanations: the consequences of the covid-19 pandemic were joined by the war in Ukraine and the consequent impact “on the labor market”. “Thus, a significant decline in the psychological well-being of university students becomes inevitable”, they conclude.
The president of RYSE and student of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Aveiro, José Mesquita, speaks of “worrying statistics” and calls for action by the “competent bodies”, which urges them to listen to young people: “Our generation is going through adversities that no other generation passed and the indifference towards the young people of today makes a difference in the adults of tomorrow.”