Life as a student can be great and exciting, but sometimes involves situations that may appear tough or demanding. At times, you may need support on how to handle things.
To give Umeå University better opportunities to offer you the right support when you need it, we participate in a project about, and for, students' mental health, which is run by the World Health Organization, WHO.
How you can contribute
First, we need to know how you actually are feeling as a student, and if your health situation changes during the study period. Therefore, we invite all first semester undergraduate programme students to fill in a health questionnaire.
You will receive the questionnaire in an email on 9 April 2024. The email subject will be (in Swedish) “Hur har du det? WHO-enkät till dig som är student” and it will be sent from the email address noreply[at]qemailserver.com, from the survey platform Qualtrics. If you do not receive the email in your inbox, please check your spam folder in case it has ended up there instead.
The questionnaire contains questions about physical and mental health. If you are one of those who will receive the email, your answers are important to us regardless of how you feel when you receive the survey.
Your answers will be processed in such a way that no unauthorized persons can access them. You will receive more detailed information about how your personal data and answers will be processed, in the email containing the link to the questionnaire. We are very grateful for your participation.
What happens next?
At the end of the questionnaire, there is information on where to turn for those who need support for their health situation. You who answered the entire survey may receive an invitation to a research study on developing digital supports.
Once a year for the rest of your studies, those who have provided complete answers to the first survey will have the opportunity to participate in a follow-up survey. In spring 2024, this will be on 16 April.
Who receives the survey and how long does the project last?
All students who are taking their first semester in an undergraduate study programme during the spring semester 2024, will receive the email containing an invitation to the questionnaire. New undergraduate programme students during the upcoming semesters will also be invited to participate.
About the project
The survey is part of the global research project "World Health Organization (WHO) World Mental Health International College Student Initiative (WMH-ICS)". The long-term project goal is to prevent mental illness in students by systematically following up on how students are doing and developing and offering quality-assured initiatives for students who need support for being in as good health as possible. Umeå University has participated since 2021.
Background
In total, Sweden's universities and colleges together have around 400,000 students per semester. Conducted surveys show that mental illness, including substance use, is common among students.
According to the Higher Education Ordinance, each institution of higher education has a responsibility to promote mental health, especially through preventive measures. How that assignment is solved at each institution varies as a result of the institutions' independence; some, such as Umeå University, run their own student health service, while others have procured the service from private companies. This means that there can be large differences between the universities when it comes to the possibility of offering students systematic and quality-assured support.
In 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO) initiated the international student health project World Mental Health International College Student (WMH-ICS) Initiative, under the leadership of professor Ronald C Kessler at Harvard University, USA. In the spring of 2019, Sweden joined the project, with professor Anne H Berman, Uppsala University, and docent Claes Andersson, Malmö University, as nationally responsible researchers. Umeå University has participated from 2021 onwards.
The Swedish project received funding from the Swedish Research Council for the initial phase. The long-term ambition is for the project to subsequently receive continuous funding and include all Swedish higher education institutions and students.
What is being done within the project?
Researchers, student health services and student unions collaborate to achieve the goals of the project, which is to implement a scalable structure for systematic and continuous follow-up of students' well-being at local, national and international level, and to develop a platform to make available and quality-assure preventive measures and treatment.
The work is done in three key areas:
Annual web-based surveys of first-semester program students to collect epidemiologic data
Development and evaluation of digital interventions for mental illness
Dissemination, implementation, and quality assurance of evidence-based methodology.
The annual survey contains questions that are used by all participants in the global project. In addition, it contains nationally adapted questions that have been selected in collaboration with participating researchers, universities, student health services and student unions. From the autumn semester 2021, a treatment study with an experimental design will also be carried out.
Participating partners
At Umeå University, the Student Health Service within the Student Services Office coordinates the project. The University Management and the student unions are participating actors. The Swedish Research Council contributes with around SEK 5 million to the Swedish part of the project. In addition to Umeå University, a number of Swedish universities and colleges are participating, including the universities of Gothenburg, Uppsala, Stockholm, Malmö, Linnaeus University, and Södertörn University.
The nationally responsible researchers are Anne H Berman, professor at Uppsala University and Claes Andersson, docent at Malmö University. If you have questions about the project or the survet, you can contact them via email to swedishunisurveys@uu.se. You can also contact Ann-Kristin Sandström at the Student Health Service within the Student Services Office at Umeå University, if you have questions.
