Characteristics of University Students with Emotional Problems

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Abstract
In an attempt to further clarify back-ground characteristics associated with emotional problems among university students, forty-nine social and medical variables were selected for study and applied in questionnaire form to three groups of University of Western Ontario students: 1) seventy-three students consulting psychiatric services; 2) one hundred and fifty-three students consulting the Counsellor of the Student Health Service on the campus; 3) a control group of 243 students drawn from the Student Directory, not in 1) or 2) above, representing 243 of 250 questionnaires sent out. On comparing the three groups, each with the other two, (and repeated for males, females and both sexes combined) 25 of the 49 variables demonstrated significant (p<0.05) differences. The counselled and psychiatric groups (as compared with controls) demonstrated trends toward ‘single' marital status, the arts courses, lower grades, less time studying, more frequent course changes, less extracurricular participation, being in a course not fulfilling father's expectations, fewer ‘definite' religious affiliations, more frequent medical consultations and previous help for emotional problems and several somatic symptoms. Some of these significant relationships were contributed largely by either the males or the females in the samples, i.e. there is a differentiation of some of the findings by sex. On 10 of the 25 variables showing significant differences between groups, the response distribution for the counselled group was intermediate between that for the control and psychiatric groups. The findings were in agreement with previous investigations for most of the variables, and in disagreement for a few. There is evidence to suggest that groups of variables may cluster into syndrome-like patterns.

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