Depression and anxiety is a major problem among college students. There has been much research on why college causes depression and anxiety among college students and ways that we can help prevent college students from getting depressed or having anxiety. We most likely have had experiences where we felt really overwhelmed with how much school work we have in such a little time that it causes anxiety or depression. Students in college tend to deal with a lot of stressors especially a lot of first like leaving their family, having roommates that they do not know, and even being in a new environment.
Previous research supports the fact that there is a lot of depression and anxiety among college students but, mainly anxiety. Mental disorders in late adolescents and early adulthood is very important, college students tend to experience more anxiety and depression which leads to major drop out rates (Hajduk et al., 2019). Depression and anxiety among college students also cause the increase the use of drugs on college campuses and that college causes a students to have a higher level of anxiety and stress (Prosek etal., 2018). There has also be an increase of reports by universities about depression and anxiety among college students, but communicating with others about how you are feeling can decrease the results of a college student having anxiety and depression, but the only issue with this is that most college students have a hard to finding someone that they feel comfortable expressing their feelings too (Carmack et al., 2018). According to Riba and Cusumano “the latest estimates from WHO, more than 300 million people are now living with depression. Depression and anxiety are prevalent problems in colleges across the country. During college, students experience many firsts, including a new lifestyle, friends, roommates, exposure to a new culture and experiences. Students may struggle if they can’t manage these firsts. If students aren’t prepared to cope, they can become easily susceptible to depression and anxiety.” The role of gender, age, race/ethnicity, length of stay, social support, and proficiency is also the cause of depression and anxiety among college students (Sumer, poyrazli, and Grahame 2011).
This previous research provides considerable evidence about the affects colleges have on students’ mental health especially when it comes to anxiety and depression. The purpose of this study was to provide further evidence to the previous studies that depression and anxiety is a major factor among college students even in the college that I attend too. In order to see if anxiety and depression is a major effect on college students I had them take a survey. The results could reveal two outcomes. One is that depression and anxiety does not play a major effect among college students. I hypothesize that college does play a major role in reasons why college students are depressed and have anxiety, but mainly are depressed.
