Mental illness on the rise for visiting students

The incidence and severity of mental illness amongst international students in Australia are growing, according to a new case study to be presented this week. The study, which focuses on Chinese students due to their high numbers here, has found they often deny the psychological root of mental health problems and delay seeking professional help, sometimes until they are suicidal. Further, when they do reach out, universities can offer only limited resources. Monash University research fellow Dr Helen Forbes-Mewett will release her findings at a three-day Australian Sociological Association conference that starts in Newcastle tomorrow. Drawing on lengthy interviews with 16 counsellors, doctors, and academic and support staff who work with international students, Forbes-Mewett will suggest “saving face” is a major contributor to the problem. “We’ve had a couple of students who failed when I was first here, and their parents had no idea that they were failing,” one interviewee says in her related paper. “They were suicidal at the thought of having to tell them and go home and face the shame.” Thoughts of suicide in addition to depression, anxiety and other mental health problems are increasing, according to those at the study’s coalface. “When I first started here … we probably had 40 per cent what we’d term emotional relationship problems and 60 per cent study,” says another interviewee. “Now it’s about 80 per cent emotional relationship issues and 20 per cent of what we call learning type problems … We’re dealing with people with more severe problems than … 20 years ago. Probably 20 years ago you may see five or six real severe psychiatric difficulties per counsellor. Now they’re seeing five or six a week and suicidal ideation.” Forbes-Mewett told Campus Review the findings, which are part of a more extensive four-year research project on international students, had taken her aback. “I was surprised at the severity of it,” she said. “Students take on a huge challenge when they undertake education in a foreign land, and they’re reacting with everything from being extremely stressed and not coping with their work, right through to severe depression and even suicidal tendency.” Interviewees offered a range of explanations for the upward trend, from sleep deprivation due to long work hours through to so-called “culture shock” within the academic environment. “English language difficulties and adjusting to unfamiliar methods of teaching and learning were cited as major challenges,” Forbes-Mewett writes in her paper, co-authored by Dr Anne-Maree Sawyer, a humanities lecturer at La Trobe University. “A student counsellor explained if students struggle with English, ‘everything else suffers’, including their academic performance and their capacity to ‘connect’ with others.” One interviewee said: “They have to participate in a group here. They have to question their lecturer … they have to engage, whereas in their home country … they would never question their lecturer.” Two participants in the study who had worked extensively with international students over many years said they were concerned more students with “pre-existing” psychiatric disorders were failing to declare their health status - a requirement of their student visa. The study’s participants also were concerned international students did not have full information about the limitations of the Australian healthcare system and related insurance. And they were worried they could not offer enough counselling sessions to students in need. “The people working with the students were doing an incredible job but they felt they could not give the students enough help and had to refer them to outside counsellors,” said Forbes-Mewett. She said her work provided extra detail on the seriousness of the situation, captured at the 2011 National Summit on the Mental Health of Tertiary Students earlier this year. Forbes-Mewett and Sawyer’s paper, Mental health issues amongst international students in Australia: perspectives from professionals at the coalface, is available here.