More College Students Report Diagnoses of Depression, Survey Finds

The number of college students who said they had ever received a diagnosis of depression has increased by 4.6 percentage points over the last four years, according to a survey released this month by the American College Health Association.

In the spring of 2004, 14.9 percent of students reported having received such a diagnosis, compared with 10.3 percent of students in the spring of 2000.

Of the students in last spring’s survey who reported such a diagnosis, 38 percent said they were taking medication for depression and 25.2 percent said they were in therapy.

About 10 percent of all students surveyed in 2004 said they had seriously considered suicide at least once during that year. Approximately 50 percent of the female students and 40 percent of the male students said that they had felt so depressed that they had found it difficult to function one or more times in the previous academic year.

The data about depression among college students come from the association’s National College Health Assessment, a survey that includes responses from more than 47,000 students at 74 colleges.

Information about the survey and highlights of some of its findings are available on the association’s Web site. Reports based on the survey can be ordered on the Web site.

Background articles from The Chronicle:

• When Students Kill Themselves, Colleges May Get the Blame (6/25/2004)
• More Help for Troubled Students (12/5/2003)
• Prozac Campus: More Students Seek Counseling and Take Psychiatric Medication (2/14/2003)
• MIT Committee Calls for Big Changes in Campus Mental-Health Care (7/20/2001)
• Elite Colleges Struggle to Prevent Student Suicides (2/25/2000)