I skuggan av det glada studentlivet- En kvalitativ studie om psykisk ohälsa bland studenter ur kuratorer inom studenthälsovårdens perspekiv

Authors: Johanna Lantz and Josefine Karlsson Title: In the shade of the happy student life: A qualitative study of mental illness among students from the perspective of counselors in student health centers Supervisor: Anders Olsson Mental illness is a recognized and controversial public health problem both nation-ally and internationally and a highly relevant topic in social work. A large group of people who suffer from this phenomenon are students, who forms the basis of our thesis. The purpose of this study was to investigate how counselors who work with student's healthcare are describing, explaining and working with mental health problems among students. To obtain our results, we have used a qualitative method and conducted semi-structured interviews with seven counselors in three different student health clinics in southern Sweden. We analyzed our material based on the theories Sence Of Coherence, coping and empowerment. Our results indicate that the counselors perceive mental illness among students as a broad phenomenon which is bound to its context and rather can be seen as normal life crises. It is found that high demands, coming from students themselves as well as from society, can be seen as contributing elements that affect mental health among students as well as lack of structure, changes in life and a high consumption of alcohol. At the student health centers counselors mainly work with individual counseling and attaches great importance to the relationship with the students which indicate that their work is inspired by empowerment. They also work with courses based on student needs and believe that prevention is important to counter problems from occurring