[Psychological disorders of students and university results]

Many epidemiological studies demonstrate the importance of psychological disorders among college and university students. Those disorders have an impact upon the academic performance and may lead to dropping out. The aim of this research is to study the possible relations between the incidence of psychological troubles and the evolution of the academic performance. The sample is constituted by 45 first year students of the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. Each subject has answered the psychological and psychiatric inventory built up by Bernot et al. (1969) (Psychorater). The academic performance evolution has been scored by comparing, for each student, the mark means obtained at the first three sessions. Cross-sessions comparisons have made possible to divide the sample into four subgroups: "in regression", "with relatively stable performances", "in progression" and "dropouts". The results show a statistically significative relation between, on the one hand, the university adaptation difficulties leading to dropping out and, on the other hand, the "impulsivity-instability" dimension and the "family, professional and social adaptation troubles". Excluding the dropout subjects, it is not possible, however, to correlate the variations in the academic performance and the incidence of psychological troubles found with the Psychorater.