Depression in College Stephen Schueller Northwestern University Future Technology to Preserve College Student Health and Foster Wellbeing (Student Health) Workshop July 30, 2015

Mental Health in College ACHA Spring, 2014 Felt very sad: 72.0% Felt overwhelmed by all you had to do: 86.4% Felt very lonely: 59.2% Felt so depressed that it was difficult to function: 32.6% Felt things were hopeless: 46.4% Seriously considered suicide: 5.2% Attempted suicide: 1.3% Diagnosed or treated for depression: 12.0% All reported within the past 12 months. Nationally representative sample of 79,266 students at 140 schools.

Age-of-Onset Median AOO is 29-43, but we see consistently low risk through the early teens and a roughly linear increase therefore through middle age.

Impact of Depression Factors affecting academic performance Stress: 30.3% Anxiety: 21.8% Sleep difficulties: 21.0% Cold/Flu/Sore Throat: 15.1% Depression: 13.5% Depression students have lower GPAs, academic persistence and achievement Social and emotional difficulties predict school attrition 20 percent have considered withdrawing from school because of these problems

What to Do About it? Prevention Treatment Screening

Prevention Muñoz, Beardslee, & Leykin report that 22 to 38% of MDEs could be prevented with current methods We identified 35 RCTs of depression prevention (Muñoz, Schueller, Barrera, Le, & Torres, 2014) 3 targeted undergraduate students Seligman et al., 1999: APEX Program: CBT Seligman, Schulman, & Tyron, 2007: APEX Program: CBT Vazquez et al., 2012: Relaxation Training and CBT None of those were in the highest group of prevention.

Treatment Effective treatments exist but demand is outpacing supply Nearly 2/3rds of college students meeting diagnose for depression don’t get help From 2010 to 2012, waiting lists nearly doubled at colleges with over 25,000 students (from 35 to 62 students) Nearly 23/rds of college students meeting diagnose for depression don’t get help

Screening Wang, Chen, Chen, Li, Harari, Tignor, Zhou, Ben-Zeev, & Campbell, 2015

Screening Saeb, Zhang, Karr, Schueller, Corden, Kording, & Mohr, 2015

Depression Depressed Mood Fatigue or loss of energy Loss of interest Guilt/worthlessness Weight change Concentration difficulties Sleep difficulties Suicidality Change in activity