title: Poor mental health, depression, and associations with alcohol consumption, harm, and abuse in a national sample of young adults in college.
abstract: The purpose of this article was to describe patterns of poor mental health/depression (PMHD) in a national sample of college students and the relationships among PMHD, alcohol consumption, harm, and abuse. Responses to mailed questionnaires completed by a random sample of 27,409 students at 119 colleges were analyzed using logistic regression. Nationally, 4.8% of students reported PMHD. The average college prevalence was 5.01% (range, 0.68% to 13.23%). Students with PMHD were more likely than their peers to be female, nonwhite, and from low socioeconomic status families; less likely to report never drinking; as likely to report frequent, heavy, and heavy episodic drinking; and more likely to report drinking to get drunk. Students with PMHD-especially females-were more likely to report drinking-related harms and alcohol abuse. College is a critical context for studying youth mental health. The interrelationship of mental health problems and their clustering by group and college are important considerations for prevention and treatment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Society, Human Development and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
authors.forename: Elissa R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Weitzman
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012494:Sampling Studies; D013334:Students / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology