Quarter of students in Northern Ireland suffer from mental health illnesses according to survey

A survey has this week revealed that more than a quarter of students in Northern Ireland are suffering or have suffered from a mental illness. The research was carried out as part of the Open Your Mind campaign, which aims to promote the issues around mental health.

1500 students took part in the survey which tested awareness of mental health issues and the results showed that depression was the most common form of mental illness.

Adrianne Peltz, president of the NUS-USI students’ union spoke of her concerns, “So many people who leave home for the first time, and are far away from friends and family, can experience problems in relation to mental health. This type of scenario and the pressure of holding down a job while facing the stress of having to pass many exams and complete assignments can have a profoundly negative impact on some people’s lives, and this report’s findings are very telling. The launch of the new campaign sees the team taking their training techniques on the road to help students right across Northern Ireland.”

MindWise’s Anne Doherty said, “The findings starkly illustrate “a potential lack of understanding of this very important issue” with one in five people surveyed saying they had no experience of mental illness personally or through someone close to them. Both these key statistics perfectly illustrate the importance of the work that the Open Your Mind team do in raising awareness and training students in relation to mental health matters.”

For more information on Mindwise you can visit their website here.

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Posted by Declan McAteer on Apr 29 2012. Filed under Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry