Mental health problems among university students, and their relationship to academic failure and withdrawal

Two obvious forms of student "wastage" are academic failure and withdrawal from university. In this prospective cohort study of 2,041 first-year students at Monash University, the relationship of these two events to mental health, university life-stress and other variables is examined. Four factors found to be strongly related to first-year academic failure are mental illness at university a high level of life-stress, poor secondary school academic record, and an extroverted personality. Withdrawal from university during first year is frequently preceded by poor mental health, high life-stress and loneliness. Withdrawal during second year is strongly associated with first-year academic failure and mental illness. The significance of these findings is discussed, and comparisons are made with overseas studies.