The Development of Mental Health Caring System for Students in Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

The purposes of this study were 1) to develop mental health caring system for students in higher education institutions and 2) to examine the feasibility of the implementation of mental health caring system for students. This study operated in 3 phases: 1) to analyze the situation and needs for system development by collecting qualitative data through observation, in-depth interview and focus group interview among 12 executives of university, 20 of related academic and supportive staff, 25 university students, and three relatives of students who had mental health problems; 2) to develop the mental health caring system for students by synthesizing the data from phase 1 combined with a literature review to identify the model framework. The model was evaluated and improved for three rounds by three experts and ten persons of executive university, academic and supportive staff until the appropriate model was identified; the index of item objective congruence was 0.95 (0.67-1.00); 3) to study the feasibility of the model implementation from 32 academic and supportive staff, the validated questionnaire was used to collect the quantitative data. The index of item objective congruence was 0.87 (0.67-1.00). Qualitative data were analyzed by using the thematic analysis method. Quantitative data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics. The Ethical Research Committee approved the study.

The results illustrated that the Mental health caring system for students comprises three components: 1) structure has two levels; 1.1) institutional level includes student development division which must identify the sub-department to take responsibility on the mental health and the department that provides mental health and psychiatric care such as a hospital, counseling center; 1.2) process is functioned by ACT-C (A: Approach, C: Care, T: Treat, C: Continue) for promoting, preventing, caring, and continuum of care for students with mental health, risk, and mental health problems. The result of implying the structure and process is that students with mental health and risk groups do not develop having a mental illness; also, students with mental health problems receive appropriate care and treatment. The overall implementation feasibility of the mental health caring system had the highest level (Mean =4.51, S.D.=0.24), each sub-component; beneficial of implementation, feasibility of implementation, and transferability of the findings, had the highest level (Mean = 4.78, 4.42, 4.39, S.D.=0.07, 0.18, 0.20) respectively.

In conclusion: an academic institution could deploy the model to suitable the context of each institution for efficiency and efficiency. In addition, mental health and psychiatric nurses can customize the model to promote and prevent mental health problems for youth and undergraduate students.