Colleges struggle to cope with notable rise in students seeking counselling

Universities are struggling to deal with a “dramatic” increase in the number of students seeking counselling for mental health problems.

Anxiety and depression are the most common conditions reported, along with other issues such as self-harm and suicidal ideation.

Treasa Fox, head of student counselling Technological University of the Shannon, said the number of third-level students who attended counselling increased from 12,850 to 14,390 between 2020 and 2021.

Separate research indicates that more than a third have considered dropping out of their degree for a variety of reasons such as mental health, family or financial reasons.

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Ms Fox said the challenges of balancing personal life, work, and study, loneliness and difficulty making friends and lack of support from the university featured significantly when students considered withdrawing from their course.

This data was based on a Studentsurvey.ie poll of thousands of students conducted earlier this year.

“Without access to appropriately resourced, timely and adequate counselling services many students, because of personal or mental health reasons, will inevitably withdraw,” Ms Fox said.

She was speaking at an Oireachtas education committee on Tuesday which examined the extent of supports available in schools and third level for students with mental health problems.

These high “clinical loads” can result in diluted treatment, limits of eligibility for care, and other limitations which can lead to poor outcomes with less symptom reduction, she said.

Experienced counsellors

By contrast, counsellors with lower caseloads have increased capacity to provide more treatment., she said.

Ms Fox called for increased core funding to support higher-education institutions to meet international standards of one counsellor to 1,000 students.

She said it has become increasingly difficult to recruit qualified and experienced counsellors, psychotherapists and psychologists due to short-term contracts linked to the one-off nature of funding allocations.

“Student counselling should be identified and promoted as a viable and attractive career path for such professionals and will only be so with guaranteed core funding in order to support long-term or permanent posts which are not possible to offer based on the current ad hoc funding model,” she said.

Prof Barbara Dooley, acting registrar and deputy president of UCD, said funding has been cut for student support this year at a time when demand is increasing.

She said separate research from the My World study of 10,000 students in 2019 indicates that harmful alcohol use, financial stress, poor sleep and time spent online are linked to higher levels of anxiety and depression.

Finances emerged as a top stressor with nearly 40 per cent anxious about the pressure to engage in paid work.

Seeking support

While she said the survey did not examine issues such as the impact of commuting or difficulties accessing accommodation, she said it was likely these would also add to stress.

Prof Dooley, who was representing the Irish Universities Association, said students are likely to seek support from friends, while the support of “one good adult” was found to be protective.

However, she added that 40 per cent of students report that they do not talk about their problems, with those who do not talk reporting higher levels of distress.

Separately, Prof Paul Downes of DCU called for specialist counsellors to be made available at second-level schools to respond to the high prevalence of mental health issues.

While he welcomed a pilot project that will mean counsellors in primary schools from next year, he said there was a “glaring gap” at second level and called for the pilot project to be extended to post-primary.

“It is like an Irish solution to an Irish problem which solves nothing for Irish teenagers today,” he said.