Increasingly, colleges across the world are contending with rising rates of mental disorders, and in many cases, the demand for services on campus far exceeds the available resources. The present study reports initial results from the first stage of the WHO World Mental Health International College Student project, in which a series of surveys in 19 colleges across eight countries (Australia, Belgium, Germany, Mexico, Northern-Ireland, South-Africa, Spain, United States) were carried out with the aim of estimating prevalence and basic socio-demographic correlates of common mental disorders among first-year college students. Web-based self-report questionnaires administered to incoming first-year students (45.5% pooled response rate) screened for six common lifetime and 12-month DSM-IV mental disorders: major depression, mania/hypomania, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, alcohol use disorder, and substance use disorder. We focus on the 13,984 respondents who were full-time students: 35% of whom screened positive for at least one of the common lifetime disorders assessed and 31% screened positive for at least one 12-month disorder. Syndromes typically had onsets in early-middle adolescence and persisted into the year of the survey. Although relatively modest, the strongest correlates of screening positive were older age, female sex, unmarried-deceased parents, no religious affiliation, non-heterosexual identification and behavior, low secondary school ranking, and extrinsic motivation for college enrollment. The weakness of these associations means that the syndromes considered are widely distributed with respect to these variables in the student population. Although the extent to which cost-effective treatment would reduce these risks is unclear, the high level of need for mental health services implied by these results represents a major challenge to institutions of higher education and governments.
Background: Treatment of patients with acute mania remains a considerable medical challenge since onset of action of antimanic medication is delayed for several days. Psychostimulants could have an earlier onset of action. This assumption is based on the 'vigilance regulation model of mania' which postulates that vigilance is unstable in manic patients. Accordingly, vigilance-stabilising psychostimulants could be more useful than conventional treatment in acute mania. We present here the study protocol of a trial intended to study the efficacy and safety of methylphenidate in the initial treatment of acute mania. Methods/design: A multi-centre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial will be conducted in 88 bipolar inpatients with acute mania. Male and female patients older than 18 years will be randomised to treatment with either methylphenidate (20 to 40 mg/day) or placebo for 2.5 days, given once or twice daily. The main outcome measure is the reduction in the Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) after 2.5 days of treatment. Other outcome measures include the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale-Excited Component (PANSS-EC) the Clinical Global Impression–Bipolar Scale (CGI-BP), the Screen for Cognitive Impairment in Psychiatry (SCIP), actigraphy and the EEG-'Vigilance Algorithm Leipzig' (VIGALL). Discussion: A positive study outcome of the proposed study could substantially impact our understanding of the etiopathogenesis of mania and open new treatment perspectives. ; The study is supported by a grant of the Spanish 'Ministerio de Sanidad, Politica Social e Igualdad' (Ministry of Health, Social Politics and Equality) which was provided after a peer review process and by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III of Spain. Study drug is kindly provided by Medice, Iserlohn, Germany. Training videos for training on the YMRS are kindly provided by Bracket, Wayne, USA
In: Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology: SPPE ; the international journal for research in social and genetic epidemiology and mental health services, Band 57, Heft 8, S. 1591-1601
