Mental Illness within Higher Education: Risk Factors, Barriers to Help Seeking and Pressures on Counselling Centres.

Mental illness impacts upon a significant percentage of tertiary students in Australia and the United States. The number of students with mental illness is increasing, as is the number of students experiencing serious psychological difficulties. The first onset of mental illness frequently occurring for people aged 18 to 24, which, coupled with the stress created by study and life pressures for graduate university students, ensures that students can be considered as a group which is at high risk of developing mental illness. However, the willingness of students with mental illness to voluntarily seek help remains low. Amongst other barriers, the fear of stigmatisation, and resulting self concealment of mental illness, ensures that many students with mental illness do not seek professional help. This paper contends that the provision of information on mental illness, information on campus based treatment opportunities and the creation of an open environment where mental illness can be discussed, are critical to the improvement of help seeking behaviour. However, this paper refers to data on counsellor to student ratios in Australia, as compared to the United States, which indicates that counselling centres within Australian universities may not be effectively resourced to cope with an increase in demand for counselling services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]