Why students don’t talk about their mental health issues at Maastricht University

Background: More and more students suffer from mental health issues. This might have a negative impact on life but also on the study progress. When suffering from mental health issues, it might be difficult to decide whether or not to talk about your own mental health issues. Different motives and considerations can be taken into account when deciding on disclosing one's mental health issues or not.

Methods: Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with students. We purposefully also included both participants who decided not to disclose their mental health issues. First, participants were asked to fill out a brief questionnaire which included the items of the SURE-scale. Next, they were interviewed about the decision to disclose their mental health issues.

Findings: Only female students took part in our study. Most students (n=9) decided to not talk about their mental health issues. Only one student did. Half of the students did not feel sure about the best choice for them, and they also did not know the benefits and risks of each option. Four students did feel that they did not have enough support to make a choice. Reasons to not talk about their mental health issues were that they felt that the university cannot help them, they did not want to talk about their issues again, that they would be stigmatized or would not be taken seriously.

Discussion: These findings show that (at least female) students find it difficult to disclose their mental health issues. Many students believe that the university cannot help them. The decision aid might be a tool which can increase the visibility of the support systems of the university. Perspective of other gender groups within the students should be collected in future research.