Insights into student mental health and wellbeing

The mental health of Health Professional Students across degrees and over time

Dr Katrina Li (presenting author), La Trobe University, Prof Lena Sanci, Dr Ann-Maree Duncan, Dr Ian Williams, A/Prof Melissa Russell, The University of Melbourne

Higher rates of burnout, depression, anxiety and stress have been reported in health professional students compared to non-health professional students. Previous studies considered isolated health professional cohorts rather than different professions across multiple year levels. Therefore, this study aims to compare mental health across health professional student groups and years of study. Data from post-graduate participants enrolled in health professional programs in the “Towards a Health Promoting University” survey were analysed. Mental health measures, including depressive symptoms (Patient Health Questionnaire 9[PHQ-9]), anxiety sumptoms (Generalised Anxiety Disorder 7[GAD-7]) and resilience (10-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale), were compared across health professional programs and year levels through regression adjusting for confounding factors.

Of the 704 participants, most were enrolled in Medicine (53%), followed by Allied Health (27%), Dentistry (12%) and Nursing (8%). The mean PHQ-9 scores varied across disciplines: medical students expressed the lowest number of depressive symptoms (mean: 4.95, 95% CI: 4.44–5.45), followed by nursing students (mean: 6.90, 95% CI: 5.07–8.74). Dentistry students (mean: 7.28, 95% CI: 6.20–8.36), and allied health students (mean: 8.11, 95% CI: 7.28–8.99). Similar results were observed for anxiety symptoms. These differences remained after adjustment for age, gender citizenship status, previous treatment for mental ill health, general health and financial stress. The mental health measures were similar across first and second year health professional students, after adjustment for the previously mentioned factors and degree. Students reported fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression over time; however, resilience levels generally declined, with third-year students showing lower resilience compared to first-year students (Mean Difference: -1.71, 95%CI:-3.08,-0.33). The findings highlight variations in the mental health across different health professional disciplines and year levels and the importance of considering student mental health in all health degrees.

Beyond counselling: Coordinated case management to address complex student wellbeing needs

Amelia Hilbert and Lanie Coyne, La Trobe University

The wellbeing of students in higher education is increasingly shaped by complex social and mental health challenges that extend beyond the scope of traditional university counselling services. The post-COVID environment has amplified pressures associated with isolation, financial stress, housing insecurity, and broader societal uncertainty. National data highlights the rising prevalence of mental ill-health among young people, and universities are experiencing these trends firsthand as students present with needs requiring intensive and coordinated responses. In response to these changing wellbeing issues, La Trobe University established Student Wellbeing Connect (SWBC), a specialist team designed to provide complex case management support that addresses the psychosocial barriers impacting students’ education. The remit of this team is centred on coordinating care and assisting students to navigate internal services, external health systems, and social supports. SWBC’s objective is to deliver holistic, student-centered, trauma-informed support that promotes safety, continuity of care, and sustained engagement with study. SWBC operates within Wellbeing Services alongside counselling and other wellbeing initiatives. SWBC provides a critical framework for responding to students whose complex needs might otherwise fall outside the university’s capacity to manage, ensuring they are not left without support. This approach enables counsellors to focus on one-to-one therapeutic interventions, while also capturing and supporting students who may not be suited to traditional therapy. In doing so, SWBC has strengthened the university’s overall capacity to respond effectively to complex student presentations across the University. The presentation will showcase the service model in practice, drawing on student presentations and case examples to demonstrate the impact of coordinated, flexible responses. Dedicated case management services such as SWBC strengthen institutional wellbeing frameworks by moving beyond counselling alone. This model enhances student safety, success, and inclusion, while providing a practical blueprint for other institutions responding to the evolving health and wellbeing needs of today’s student population.

Peer-powered wellbeing: A citizen science initiative for student mental health

Dr Trisnasari Fraser (presenting author), Prof Jane Davidson, A/Prof Margaret Osborne, Dr Solange Glasser, Martina Cullen, Dr Gillian Howell, Dr Sarah Woodland, Prof Emma Redding, Dr Derrick Brown-Appenzeller, University of Melbourne

University students are facing increasing mental health challenges, with graduate students disproportionately affected by financial strain, housing insecurity, and academic isolation. What’s more, creative and performing arts students face unique mental health challenges, associated with precarious career prospects. Although most universities provide counselling and wellbeing services, many Australian students report barriers such as low awareness, long waitlists, cultural or linguistic mismatches, and negative experiences with on-campus support. These gaps highlight a disconnect between institutional offerings and students’ lived experiences or preferred ways of coping. Building on research from the Student and Graduate Researcher Wellbeing and University Experience Surveys, this project seeks to understand how University of Melbourne Faculty of Fine Arts and Music students manage their wellbeing and how the university can support and amplify these practices through co-designed and innovative strategies. It draws on social prescribing, which offers a model to connect individuals to group interventions and community-based supports to address social isolation. This project aims to:

1. Investigate how students manage their wellbeing and allocate their time.
2. Identify gaps and opportunities in current wellbeing services.
3. Co-design and implement a tailored wellbeing program using a social prescribing model.
4. Empower students through active participation and peer-to-peer engagement.

Using a citizen science framework, the project will involve students as co-researchers across three phases:

1. Needs and assets review – Assess how current services align with student-identified concerns and informal strategies.
2. Program design – Co-develop a wellbeing program that integrates and expands on existing offerings from the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. This program will be hosted via a university-supported app that enables peer-to-peer recommendation, reviews, and data collection through experience sampling.
3. Implementation and evaluation – Launch the program and assess its impact through app-based data and focus groups with students and facilitators.

This participatory, arts-informed, and digitally enabled approach will elevate student voice, foster meaningful engagement, and inform future institutional wellbeing strategies.

Much ado about nothing? - The presence (or lack thereof) of non-response bias in a survey of university student mental health

Dr Angus Gilmore, University of Melbourne (presenting author) and Dr Daniel Costa, University of Sydney

University student mental health has received substantially increased research attention throughout the past two decades. Contemporaneously, these past two decades have also seen marked reductions in response rates to surveys. Therefore, while a large body of university student mental health research has been created, this literature is overwhelmingly based upon samples with very low response rates. Low response rates are commonly interpreted as indicating a lack of external validity, owing to the presumed existence of non-response bias. However, low response does not necessarily indicate the presence of non-response bias. The challenge for researchers is to evaluate the extent and implications of non-response bias within university student mental health research. To this end, an identical mental health survey was given to a cohort of Australian psychology students in 2023, 2024 and 2025. In 2023, this survey was administered via a mixed approach, including email invitations, receiving a 15% response rate. In 2024 and 2025, this survey was administered during tutorials, with both iterations receiving greater than 80% response. Despite this variation in response rates, the three samples display strikingly similar outcomes. The population estimates and inter-variable correlations provided by the 15% sample did not differ significantly from those reported in either of the 2024 and 2025 samples. This provides preliminary evidence that concerns surrounding low survey response rates within university student mental health research may be disproportionate.

Full program

Abstracts