{"id":106132,"date":"2019-11-15T16:17:18","date_gmt":"2019-11-15T15:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=106132"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:24:34","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:24:34","slug":"according-to-this-psychologist-numbers-of-students-with-mental-health-problems-not-on-the-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2019\/11\/15\/according-to-this-psychologist-numbers-of-students-with-mental-health-problems-not-on-the-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"According to this psychologist, numbers of students with mental health problems not on the rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone who reads a newspaper almost always come to the same conclusion: life is tough for students. They have to deal with stress, anxiety disorders and symptoms of burn-out. And with the increased pressure to achieve and the abolition of the basic student grant, things are only getting worse. But are these psychological problems among students really getting worse? No, according to former victimology professor Peter van der Velden of the CentERdata research institute in Tilburg. In fact, in the past decade there has hardly been any change.<\/p>\n

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Van der Velden\u2019s recently published research shows<\/a> that in 2007, 2012 and 2017 around 7 percent of students and other young people experienced serious problems with their study programmes or jobs owing to physical or mental health problems. In all three of these years, approximately 35 percent regularly felt fatigued and around 9 percent suffered from serious feelings of anxiety and depression. Less than 2 percent used medication to treat their problems.<\/p>\n

Another conclusion: psychological problems occur among students just as often as among their non-studying peers.<\/p>\n

Very different picture<\/h2>

Previous studies give a very different picture. This week the Dutch National Student Association ISO presented figures<\/a> derived from 18 previous studies into student well-being. According to these figures, half of students suffer from problematic levels of stress, one third have psychologically related symptoms (such as concentration problems, performance anxiety and depression) while 15 percent had a serious risk of developing occupational burn-out.<\/p>\n\n\t

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