Students' Mental health

 

Everyone is going through their hardest time during the pandemic. COVID-19 has changed the way lives were used to be. Somehow people are coming back to the normal life with the passing time. 

But the major problem is how the students have dealt and would be dealing with the dilemma of uncertainties and failures.

It is strange that news reports, government policies, and the public’s concern are not into the fact that how the students’ lie is proceeding in the new normal. 

Let us see this situation in detail for the US and then for India, and see the possible recommendations.

 

Report by SERU

Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) released a report where the survey was done on around 50,000 students of 9 US public research universities. 

It found that 35% undergraduates and 32% of graduate students screened positive for major depressive disorder while 39% of all students were found to have general anxiety disorder.

Moreover, these symptoms are higher in low-income students, students of colour, LGBT, caregivers, etc. The prevalence of the major depressive disorder is two times higher than that in 2019 survey and for anxiety disorder, it is 1.5 times higher than that in 2019.

Source: SERU research paper

Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-2 (GAD-2) were the tools used in the survey. Students of Science, arts, humanity, commerce, psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc were examined and varying patterns of mental health were found.

 

Picture of India

The COVID-19 scenario has an obvious impact because of the nationwide lockdown but the situation started to become worse during early 2020. 

India has seen the highest unemployment rate in the last 45 years. This is something that resulted in the fall in foreign exchange, taxes, and subsequent fall of GDP.

Irony is that these issues are not in priority neither for media nor for the government. Most of the students come from a low-income background and with the pseudo semester going on, the risk of losing a career, job or a startup, is something alarming yet given the least priority.

According to psychiatrist and other experts, the uncertain outcomes of the pandemic to their careers are the reason for anxiety among students. How long they would wait, what if the well-planned career out of unavoidable family conditions does not go the way it was thought, etc are some unsettling questions for undergraduate youth.

For graduate, postgraduate, professional students, the anxiety level is high and higher is the stress. Career building is an utmost priority for every individual and his/her parents. Job loss, pay cuts, decrease in hiring % in major sectors, etc. are some factors that gave rise to major mental health problems for youngsters not only in India but all over the world.

 

Recommendations to Overcome

Educating everyone about mental health is important because people still feel guilty of being into such problems. These disorders are as normal as a physical injury which is mandatory to be cured. 

Good communication with the students near us in regular interval should be done.

The institutions should increase resources, remove barriers as much as possible for the students to feel free to speak up. 

The faculty should involve virtually with students with this topic once a day because everyone is facing something and this would collectively help every individual.

Collective support for collective benefits

On an individual level, we should openly seek help from our family. We should be in contact with our colleagues, seek and serve help, be emotionally connected with them till everyone reaches the level they desired and worked for.

 

Unfortunately, these things didn’t actually happen. Institutions put the parents in more financial pressure by asking for full fees even for the virtual semesters. The criteria should be uniform for everyone, there should be a law for it.

Moreover, for all of us, mental health should be the topmost priority, irrespective of external circumstances. After all, we are the hope for the better tomorrow.