Approximately 55 percent of college students have considered suicide at least one point in their lives, a new survey reports.
Six percent of students surveyed reported they had seriously considered taking their own lives, David Drum, a professor of education psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, who conducted the survey, said.
The survey's findings, which were presented in August at the American Psychological Association's annual convention, include results from 26,000 undergraduate and graduate students from 70 different universities.
While the University of Delaware was not part of the study, Drum said he thinks the survey's results are important for all universities to consider.
Victoria Kim, project director of suicide prevention in Delaware, said she thinks many universities do not want to assess suicide because it is such a sensitive issue. She said students may consider suicide for various reasons, including the stress of college life and academics.
One quarter of the students who said they having considered suicide in Drum's survey said their thoughts only occurred once. The rest had multiple occurrences of suicide thoughts. Drum said these findings reveal the need to develop new means of treatment for suicidal individuals.
He said the term "considered suicide" can include a range of behaviors from a fleeting thought to more extreme feelings where actual attempts at suicide could be made.
"It's important to know it can be brief and reoccurring," Drum said. "This means that some of our traditional methods are just not going to be able to affect those people."
Charles Beale, director of the university's center for counseling and student development, said Drum's statistics confirm why increasing amounts of students have recently been visiting the counseling center.
"When you graduate, we probably will have seen about 25 percent of the graduating class," Beale said.
Students must seek help from the counseling center if they are concerned for themselves or others, he said. The center's biggest referral sources are friends of students and students who have already been to the center.
Beale said there are many reasons why such a large number of college students have considered suicide, including leaving home and coming to terms with past issues.
The center handles students with suicidal thoughts on a case-by-case basis by determining the mental state of each student, he said.
Kim said gate-keeper training, which teaches people the risk factors and warning signs of suicide and the appropriate measures to take should someone be suicidal, can help make people more aware of the signs of suicidal thoughts.
Beale said although resident assistants at the university do not undergo gate-keeper training, they are made aware of the signs, Beale said. They are instructed to urge students to visit the counseling center at the first signs of any concerning behavior.
Should a student visit the counseling center, a counselor will assess the student's frame of mind, he said. Unless the student poses a risk to anyone, including himself or herself, the student can continue living on campus while seeing the counselor.
Beale said if the student is deemed to be a risk to themselves or others, the counseling center is obligated to take action, such as sending the student to the hospital until they are ready to return to campus.
Junior Stephanie King said she thinks the center taking action may deter many students from seeking help.
"Some people think that if they share some information with the school, they're obligated to tell their parents or someone," King said.
Senior Ashley Gannon said she has known little about the counseling center since her time at the university.
"I remember freshman year, seeing flyers up and I was like 'oh, that's nice,'" Gannon said. "But that's about it."
King said she thinks students are not as aware of the counseling center as they should be and that it should be made more accessible to students.
"I think it's good that they have it, but I don't really see too much about it," King said. "I'm pretty sure there'd be more students willing to take advantage of it if it was out there more
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