Mental Illness Awareness Week (MIAW), the first week of October every year, is a week dedicated to creating awareness about mental illnesses. MIAW which began in the USA in 1990 is now celebrated all over the world with this year’s theme being “What I Wish I Had Known” where the focus is on the power of lived experience. It is hope that everybody can learn from those with lived experience who share different components of recovery where they learnt something that could have helped them sooner – pertaining to prevalence, risk factors, medications, myths, therapeutic options, stigma, etc
Mental health is a growing concern, especially among university students who are transitioning into adulthood. Those with overt mental illness symptoms are actually just the tip of the iceberg with the bulk of sufferers actually having High Functioning Mental Illness. This is a term to describe those living with mental illness that others do not detect. However these manifest in certain odd behaviours and responses., More and more universities have realized this and are addressing the mental health issues faced by their community by establishing some on-campus mental health services. COVID-19 epidemic has made the issue even worse with many university students suffering in silence.
With Malaysia announcing the Movement Control Order (MCO) due to the pandemic, it has caused educational institutions to switch their method of teaching to a new norm, which is via online. Students have already had to face a drastic change in their learning due to the MCO and with the implementation of social distancing, masking and mandatory testing, vaccinations and home isolation. After about two years of online learning and social distancing, students now have to adapt to going back to physical classes on the back of a challenging economy that has hit their families hard.
It is undeniable that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, young adults were often the most vulnerable to mental health issues. According to Kumaran et al. (2022), Malaysian university students were collectively facing mental health issues resulting from high anxiety and depression. Thus, the educational institutions play a role in providing education and spreading awareness about mental health amongst university students. Early recognition of mental problems and accessible help is necessary to prevent long term / grave consequences of mental health issues on our university students.
MAHSA University takes a very serious view on the mental well being of our students and has put in place a mentor- mentee system as the first line of support for all our students. Each student is assigned a lecturer mentor who will meet the student periodically and discuss issues they may have and where necessary the mentors will refer students for counselling sessions with our licensed counsellor at MAHSA or invite parents/ guardians for discussions to see how to help students who may be facing family related issues. Students are urged to contact their mentor anytime they face any problems that affects their mental health whether it be academic related or not.
Supporting the mentors is our licensed counsellors under our Student Central Department that provides counselling service to our student as required. Some faculties in MAHSA University, such as the Faculty of Health Sciences have also taken the extra step of having their own Clinical Psychologist to provide mental health support training to faculty lectures and mentors as well as helping students in need.
Effective teaching and learning can only take place if all the students are healthy both in mind and body. Therefore MAHSA University continues to do as smuch as we can to provide mental health help to support our students’ academic journey.
Early detection and intervention is key to minimizing long term effects of mental health problems, and students as well as parents need to be aware of what help MAHSA has made available for our students and make use of these avenues when necessary to reach out for help
References
Kumaran, V. V., Ismail, M. K., Thinagar, S., & Roslan, S. N. M. (2022). Mental Health Disorder among Malaysian Universities Students during COVID-19 Pandemic. Asian Journal of University Education, 18(3), 735-744.