Psychological interventions for university students across Europe: a survey among consulting services

Concerns about the mental health of college students have raised in recent years. The present study aims to assess the presence of student psychological services provided for higher education students in Europe centres. We developed a semi-structured web-based survey and searched the websites of institutions included in the European Tertiary Education Registry. Survey questions covered the presence/absence of student psychological centres, provided services, their theoretical orientation, the duration of interventions, the students’ most common reported problems, and the most common organisational problems these services faced. We contacted via email and/or contact forms 2806 institutions. Only 121 participated (4.05% of all European institutions). The majority (103, 85.12%) of institutions reported having student psychological services. Counselling was the most widely provided intervention (81, 78.64%), followed by group interventions (25, 24.27%), workshops, psychotherapy, and career counselling (22, 21.36%). According to services staff, the main issues reported by students were anxiety (57, 55.34%), social and relational problems (40, 38.83%), academic issues (37, 35.92%), and mood disorders (37, 35.92%). Many services offered cognitive-behavioural interventions (38, 36.89%), while psychodynamic interventions were offered in 12 institutions (11.65%). This study is a first attempt to underline the importance of mapping student counselling centres and services available in European tertiary education institutions, and, also, to promote international data sharing of these important insights. These insights reveal the inadequacy of institutional mental health services for students struggling with serious mental health problems, which in turn explains the great need for clinical psychology and psychotherapeutic interventions.