An Assessment of Austrian School Students’ Mental Health and Their Wish for Support: A Mixed Methods Approach

Katja Haider, Elke Humer, Magdalena Weber, Christoph Pieh, Tiam Ghorab, Rachel Dale, Carina Dinhof, Afsaneh Gächter, Thomas Probst and Andrea Jesser ()
Additional contact information
Katja Haider: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University for Continuing Education Krems, 3500 Krems, Austria
Elke Humer: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University for Continuing Education Krems, 3500 Krems, Austria
Magdalena Weber: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University for Continuing Education Krems, 3500 Krems, Austria
Christoph Pieh: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University for Continuing Education Krems, 3500 Krems, Austria
Tiam Ghorab: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University for Continuing Education Krems, 3500 Krems, Austria
Rachel Dale: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University for Continuing Education Krems, 3500 Krems, Austria
Carina Dinhof: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University for Continuing Education Krems, 3500 Krems, Austria
Afsaneh Gächter: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University for Continuing Education Krems, 3500 Krems, Austria
Thomas Probst: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University for Continuing Education Krems, 3500 Krems, Austria
Andrea Jesser: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University for Continuing Education Krems, 3500 Krems, Austria

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 6, 1-18

Abstract: The mental health of school students has been severely impacted by the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study used a mixed methods approach to assess students’ mental health and examine their wishes for support to improve their psychological well-being. We further investigated gender and age group differences in the amount of clinically relevant mental health problems and the roles that mental health and gender had on desired support. Between April and May 2022, a total of 616 Austrian students aged between 14 and 20 participated in a cross-sectional online survey (77.4% female; 19.8% male; 2.8% non-binary) assessing wishes for support regarding mental well-being and mental health indicators (depression: PHQ-9; anxiety: GAD-7; insomnia: ISI; stress: PSS-10; eating disorders: SCOFF; alcohol abuse: CAGE). A wish for support was expressed by 46.6% of the students. Qualitative content analysis revealed that the two most important categories of desired support types were “professional help” and “someone to talk to”. The group of students with a wish for support in general significantly more often showed clinically relevant depression, anxiety, insomnia, eating disorders, or high stress symptoms. Students that wished for professional help significantly more often exceeded the cut-off for clinically relevant depression, anxiety, and high stress. Those who wished for someone to talk to significantly more often exceeded the cut-off for clinically relevant eating disorders. The results indicate a great need for support for young people’s mental health problems and that this need is even more urgent for students.

Keywords: mental health; mental illness; wish for support; mixed methods research; adolescents; young adults; school students; Austria (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/6/4749/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/6/4749/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:6:p:4749-:d:1090748

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().