Search

OBJECTIVES: Mental disorders and suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB) are common and burdensome among college students. Although available evidence suggests that only a small proportion of the students with these conditions receive treatment, broad-based data on patterns of treatment are lacking. The aim of this study is to examine the receipt of mental health treatment among college students cross-nationally. METHODS: Web-based self-report surveys were obtained from 13,984 first year students from 19 colleges in eight countries across the world as part of the World Health Organization's World Mental Health-International College Student Initiative. The survey assessed lifetime and 12-month common mental disorders/STB and treatment of these conditions. RESULTS: Lifetime and 12-month treatment rates were very low, with estimates of 25.3-36.3% for mental disorders and 29.5-36.1% for STB. Treatment was positively associated with STB severity. However, even among severe cases, lifetime and 12-month treatment rates were never higher than 60.0% and 45.1%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: High unmet need for treatment of mental disorders and STB exists among college students. In order to resolve the problem of high unmet need, a reallocation of resources may focus on innovative, low-threshold, inexpensive, and scalable interventions. ispartof: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF METHODS IN PSYCHIATRIC RESEARCH vol:28 issue:2 ispartof: location:United States status: published

Objective To assess the accuracy of WMH-ICS online screening scales for evaluating four common mental disorders (Major Depressive Episode[MDE], Mania/Hypomania[M/H], Panic Disorder[PD], Generalized Anxiety Disorder[GAD]) and suicidal thoughts and behaviors[STB] used in the UNIVERSAL project. Methods Clinical diagnostic reappraisal was carried out on a subsample of the UNIVERSAL project, a longitudinal online survey of first year Spanish students (18-24 years old), part of the WHO World Mental Health-International College Student (WMH-ICS) initiative. Lifetime and 12month prevalence of MDE, M/H, PD, GAD and STB were assessed with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview-Screening Scales [CIDI-SC], the Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors Interview [SITBI] and the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale [C-SSRS]. Trained clinical psychologists, blinded to responses in the initial survey, administered via telephone the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview [MINI]. Measures of diagnostic accuracy and McNemar chi(2) test were calculated. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to maximize diagnostic capacity. Results A total of 287 students were included in the clinical reappraisal study. For 12-month and lifetime mood disorders, sensitivity/specificity were 67%/88.6% and 65%/73.3%, respectively. For 12-month and lifetime anxiety disorders, these were 76.8%/86.5% and 59.6%/71.1%, and for 12-month and lifetime STB, 75.9%/94.8% and 87.2%/86.3%. For 12-month and lifetime mood disorders, anxiety disorders and STB, positive predictive values were in the range of 18.1-55.1% and negative predictive values 90.2-99.0%; likelihood ratios positive were in the range of 2.1-14.6 and likelihood ratios negative 0.1-0.6. All outcomes showed adequate areas under the curve [AUCs] (AUC> 0.7), except M/H and PD (AUC = 0.6). Post hoc analyses to select optimal diagnostic thresholds led to improved concordance for all diagnoses (AUCs> 0.8). Conclusion The WMS-ICS survey showed reasonable concordance with the MINI telephone interviews performed by mental health professionals, when utilizing optimized cut-off scores. The current study provides initial evidence that the WMS-ICS survey might be useful for screening purposes., This project was supported by: Fondo de Investigacion Sanitaria, Instituto de Salud Carlos III FEDER (PI13/00343); Ministerio de Sanidad, Servicios Sociales e Igualdad, Plan Nacional Sobre Drogas PNSD (exp.2015I015); and from the DIUE of the Generalitat de Catalunya (2017SGR452). L. Ballester was supported by FPU grant (FPU15/05728); M. J. Blasco was supported byRio Hortega grant (CM14/00125); P. Castellvi and P. Mortier were supported by a Sara Borrell grant (CD12/00440, and CD18/00049, resp.). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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). ispartof: JOURNAL OF ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY vol:127 issue:7 pages:623-638 ispartof: location:United States status: published

Background Although mental disorders and suicidal thoughts-behaviors (suicidal thoughts and behaviors) are common among university students, the majority of students with these problems remain untreated. It is unclear what the barriers are to these students seeking treatment. Aims The aim of this study is to examine the barriers to future help-seeking and the associations of clinical characteristics with these barriers in a cross-national sample of first-year college students. Method As part of the World Mental Health International College Student (WMH-ICS) initiative, web-based self-report surveys were obtained from 13,984 first-year students in eight countries across the world. Clinical characteristics examined included screens for common mental disorders and reports about suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Multivariate regression models adjusted for socio-demographic, college-, and treatment-related variables were used to examine correlates of help-seeking intention and barriers to seeking treatment. Results Only 24.6% of students reported that they would definitely seek treatment if they had a future emotional problem. The most commonly reported reasons not to seek treatment among students who failed to report that they would definitely seek help were the preference to handle the problem alone (56.4%) and wanting to talk with friends or relatives instead (48.0%). Preference to handle the problem alone and feeling too embarrassed were also associated with significantly reduced odds of having at least some intention to seek help among students who failed to report that they would definitely seek help. Having 12-month major depression, alcohol use disorder, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors were also associated with significantly reduced reported odds of the latter outcome. Conclusions The majority of first-year college students in the WMH-ICS surveys report that they would be hesitant to seek help in case of future emotional problems. Attitudinal barriers and not structural barriers were found to be the most important reported reasons for this hesitation. Experimental research is needed to determine whether intention to seek help and, more importantly, actual help-seeking behavior could be increased with the extent to which intervention strategies need to be tailored to particular student characteristics. Given that the preference to handle problems alone and stigma and appear to be critical, there could be value in determining if internet-based psychological treatments, which can be accessed privately and are often build as self-help approaches, would be more acceptable than other types of treatments to student who report hesitation about seeking treatment., Fondo de Investigacion Sanitaria, Instituto de Salud Carlos III-FEDER, Grant/Award Numbers: PI13/00343 and PI13/00506; Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Grant/Award Numbers: CD12/00440 and CM14/00125; Northern Ireland Public Health Agency; Bristol-Myers Squibb; GlaxoSmithKline; Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical; Pan American Health Organization; Fogarty International Center, Grant/Award Number: FIRCA R03-TW006481; US Public Health Service, Grant/Award Numbers: R01 DA016558, R01-MH069864 and R13-MH066849; Pfizer Foundation; John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (CONACyT), Grant/Award Number: CB-2016-01-285548; Ulster University; Northern Ireland Public Health Agency (HSC R & D); European Union Regional Development Fund (ERDF) EU Sustainable Competitiveness Programme for Northern Ireland; FPU, Grant/Award Number: FPU15/05728; DIUE Generalitat de Catalunya, Grant/Award Number: 2017 SGR 452; Ministerio de Sanidad, Servicios Sociales e Igualdad, PNSD, Grant/Award Number: 2015I015; ISCIII, Grant/Award Numbers: CD12/00440 and CM14/00125; Ithemba Foundation; South African Medical Research Council; Protestants Fonds voor de Geestelijke Volksgezondheid; ZonMw, Grant/Award Number: 636110005; BARMER; Eli Lilly and Company, Grant/Award Number: IIT-H6U-BX-I002; King Baudouin Foundation United States, Grant/Award Number: 2014-J2140150-102905; Belgian Fund for Scientific Research, Grant/Award Numbers: 1114717N, 11N0514N and 11N0516N; National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Grant/Award Numbers: R56MH109566 and R01MH070884

Los hombres violentos contra la pareja muestran numerosos sesgos cognitivos relacionados con los roles de género y la legitimación de la violencia. Los objetivos de esta investigación fueron analizar las propiedades psicométricas del Inventario de Pensamientos Distorsionados sobre la Mujer y el Uso de la Violencia-Revisado (IPDMUV-R), depurar sus ítems y comparar la capacidad de predicción de esta versión revisada con otras medidas de su red nomológica. La muestra constó de 463 hombres -241 maltratadores y 222 hombres de la población normativa-, con una edad media de 41.22 años (DT=11.34). Los resultados mostraron índices de ajuste aceptables para una estructura unidimensional del IPDMUV-R (nueva versión de 21 ítems), con un alfa de .74 (superior a la versión inicial de 29 ítems). La puntuación total del IPDMUV-R mostró correlaciones estadísticamente significativas con autoinformes que miden deseabilidad social y sexismo ambivalente. Al analizar los puntos de corte para diferenciar entre agresores y grupo normativo, se observó una mayor capacidad discriminativa del IPDMUV-R en comparación con el IPDMUV y las dimensiones de sexismo hostil y benévolo. En conclusión, se presenta un instrumento con adecuadas propiedades psicométricas que permite detectar sesgos cognitivos en hombres maltratadores y que es de utilidad para el ámbito clínico. Men who batter are often affected by cognitive distortions related to gender roles and the legitimization of violence as a valid way to solve conflicts. The objectives of this research were: to analyze the psychometric properties of the Inventory of Distorted Thoughts about Women and the Use of Violence-Revised (IPDMUV-R), to delete non-updated items and to compare the predictive ability of the revised version (IPDMUV-R) with other measures of the nomological network. The sample consisted of 463 men (241 batterer men and 222 men of the normative population), with a mean age of 41.22 years (SD=11.34). The results showed acceptable fit indices for a unidimensional structure of IPDMUV-R (new version of 21 items) with an alpha of .74 (higher than the original version of 29 items). The score of IPDMUV-R showed statistically significant correlations with self-reports which measure social desirability and ambivalent sexism. When analyzing the cutoff points to differentiate between batterer men and the normative group, the IPDMUV-R had a higher discriminative ability compared to IPDMUV and hostile and benevolent sexism dimensions. To conclude, an instrument with adequate psychometric properties to detect cognitive biases in violent men against the partner is presented. This instrument is useful for clinical purposes.

Los hombres violentos contra la pareja muestran numerosos sesgos cognitivos relacionados con los roles de género y la legitimación de la violencia. Los objetivos de esta investigación fueron analizar las propiedades psicométricas del Inventario de Pensamientos Distorsionados sobre la Mujer y el Uso de la Violencia-Revisado (IPDMUV-R), depurar sus ítems y comparar la capacidad de predicción de esta versión revisada con otras medidas de su red nomológica. La muestra constó de 463 hombres -241 maltratadores y 222 hombres de la población normativa-, con una edad media de 41.22 años (DT=11.34). Los resultados mostraron índices de ajuste aceptables para una estructura unidimensional del IPDMUV-R (nueva versión de 21 ítems), con un alfa de .74 (superior a la versión inicial de 29 ítems). La puntuación total del IPDMUV-R mostró correlaciones estadísticamente significativas con autoinformes que miden deseabilidad social y sexismo ambivalente. Al analizar los puntos de corte para diferenciar entre agresores y grupo normativo, se observó una mayor capacidad discriminativa del IPDMUV-R en comparación con el IPDMUV y las dimensiones de sexismo hostil y benévolo. En conclusión, se presenta un instrumento con adecuadas propiedades psicométricas que permite detectar sesgos cognitivos en hombres maltratadores y que es de utilidad para el ámbito clínico.