Increasingly, colleges across the world are contending with rising rates of mental
disorders, and in many cases, the demand for services on campus far exceeds the available
resources. The present study reports initial results from the first stage of the WHO
World Mental Health International College Student project, in which a series of surveys
in 19 colleges across 8 countries (Australia, Belgium, Germany, Mexico, Northern Ireland,
South Africa, Spain, United States) were carried out with the aim of estimating prevalence
and basic sociodemographic correlates of common mental disorders among first-year
college students. Web-based self-report questionnaires administered to incoming first-year
students (45.5% pooled response rate) screened for six common lifetime and 12-month
DSM-IV mental disorders: major depression, mania/hypomania, generalized anxiety disorder,
panic disorder, alcohol use disorder, and substance use disorder. We focus on the
13,984 respondents who were full-time students: 35% of whom screened positive for
at least one of the common lifetime disorders assessed and 31% screened positive for
at least one 12-month disorder. Syndromes typically had onsets in early to middle
adolescence and persisted into the year of the survey. Although relatively modest,
the strongest correlates of screening positive were older age, female sex, unmarried-deceased
parents, no religious affiliation, nonheterosexual identification and behavior, low
secondary school ranking, and extrinsic motivation for college enrollment. The weakness
of these associations means that the syndromes considered are widely distributed with
respect to these variables in the student population. Although the extent to which
cost-effective treatment would reduce these risks is unclear, the high level of need
for mental health services implied by these results represents a major challenge to
institutions of higher education and governments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018
APA, all rights reserved).