Why do we need a strategy

Our Student Mental Health Strategy has been formed using student mental health evidence compiled by the University and other Higher Education institutes across the UK.

About one in four people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year; around three-quarters of adults with a mental illness first experience symptoms before the age of 25, and today’s generation of young adults are more likely to experience mental illness than previous generations (Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey: Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing, 2014).

Supporting students in Higher Education

Levels of mental illness, mental distress and low wellbeing among students in higher education in the UK are increasing, and students can be at added risk of experiencing poorer mental health and wellbeing, due to factors relating to academic, financial and social pressures (Advance HE Student Academic Experience Survey Report 2020).

This is evident in the high levels of mental distress reported by students, and the extent to which UK universities, including the University of Edinburgh, have experienced increases in the number of students seeking support, as well as in the proportion of students who disclose a mental health condition to universities.

Concerns about student mental health have been acknowledged in higher education at a UK level, and Universities UK has put forward a ‘Mentally Healthy Universities’ framework which promotes a ‘whole university approach’, and which we are using to inform our work at Edinburgh.