To understand the lack of resources allocated to mental health treatment, Ben Locke suggests imagining a visit to the doctor to treat strep throat. The doctor says, “Why don’t you come back in two weeks and then we’ll give you half of a prescription for antibiotics.”
Mr. Locke is executive director of the Center for Collegiate Mental Health, housed at Penn State University, which on Friday released its annual report.
It found that while college students in counseling are showing increased lifetime rates of self-harm (23.8%) and serious contemplation of suicide (30.9%), the lack of sufficient mental health resources on campus may reduce students’ ability to fully recover even when treatment is effective.
Students often have to wait for an appointment at counseling centers, and once they’re seen, they often don’t complete as many sessions as they should, Mr. Locke said: The patient with only half a prescription won’t fully recover from his strep throat, and neither will the student battling depression, anxiety, or other mental health challenges.
“Many universities haven’t wrapped their minds around how or if to treat it yet,” Mr. Locke said of the rise in need for campus mental health treatment.
Often, campuses simply don’t have enough counselors.
Mr. Locke pointed to studies by the International Association of Counseling Services, which suggests that universities have 1 counselor per 1,000 to 1,500 students. Colleges with more than 7,500 students have trouble meeting that standard, the association says, and very large universities have as few as 1 counselor per 3,700 students.
With 19 full-time counselors and about 29,000 students, the University of Pittsburgh doesn’t quite meet IACS guidelines. Three of those counselors are graduate student interns.
Pitt counselors agree that demand is up and unmatched by resources.
Jay Holden, the case manager at Pitt’s University Counseling Center, said all mental health facilities, both on campus and in the community, are dealing with “higher demand and higher acuity. Students present more willingly ... and the symptoms are often more severe than before.”
Students are finding that help sometimes is tough to get.
Eliza Kaye, a Pitt junior from Buffalo, N.Y., said she went to the counseling center for help with an eating disorder in her freshman year, but was told to seek help outside of the university.
Another woman, a Pitt sophomore who sought help for anxiety after a sexual assault, said that while “the adult advice, support and encouragement my counselor gave was so helpful,” she wished she could have been seen more often.
After her counselor’s resignation in December, she said she has gone nearly two months without an appointment. She has one set up for Monday.
Ali Soukovich, a Point Park University senior from Upper St. Clair, said she went to the university’s counseling center for both academic and personal issues. “I went for both, and [the counselor] was really helpful for academic-related issues, but personal, not so much,” she said.
Mr. Locke said students often create problems by missing appointments.
While just under 20 percent of the general population receiving mental health treatment drop out of counseling — meaning they miss or cancel their last appointment without rescheduling — more than 30 percent of college students do, according to a 2012 study cited in the Penn State report.
Mr. Locke attributes this to busy schedules and the misplacement of their health at the bottom of a long list of competing demands. “On the whole, students view medical care a little bit more informally than the general population.”
Those missed slots could have been taken by other students, he said.
Marian Vanek, the acting director of Pitt’s counseling center, said missed appointments are a problem there.
“Our resources are strapped and we would certainly like to take advantage of every opportunity to take care of our students,” she said.
The report reviewed cases involving more than 101,000 students at 140 counseling centers across the country. It also noted that anxiety, depression and relationship problems were the top three reasons students sought mental health treatment in 2014.
First Published: February 7, 2015, 5:00 a.m.