Students are taking more and more pills for stress

More and more students are trying to balance stress at universities with psychotropic drugs

28/11/2012

The pressure to perform does not just start when you enter work, but during your studies. According to a survey, the proportion of students taking psychotropic drugs has risen sharply. In the case of antidepressants alone, the regulations for students have increased by a whopping 40 percent within four years. The reasons for this could be stress, financial worries or auditing pressure, because the new study reforms hardly leave any time for personality development and learning.

According to a report published today by the Techniker Krankenkasse, more and more students in Germany are taking medicines to counter the stress in the universities. So be loud the cash register „Every fifth drug that a student gets prescribed is a remedy for nervous system disorders“. The TK had evaluated the health situation of students between 20 and 35 years of age based on their own documents.

Increase in daily doses by 55 percent
While a student took an average of 8.7 daily doses of psychotropic or psychotropic drugs in 2006, the daily dose in 2010 was already 13.5. This corresponds to a can increase of 55 percent. By comparison, peers who are already employed in their professional lives were given an average of 9.9 daily doses. Here, too, the health insurance company recorded an increase of 39 percent, but this was lower than among the students.

Extrapolated, one student took medicine for 65 days in 2010. Workers in the same age groups, on the other hand, took an average of 72 days of medication. The proportion of antidepressants in high school students is alarmingly high. Here, the prescription rates increased by more than 40 percent compared to the year 2006. Every fifth student suffered from a mental illness. The rate is the same as for the young workers. Again, one in five diagnosed a mental disorder, such as depression.

Student women are more likely to be affected by 30 percent than men (13 percent). Other studies indicate that men are almost equally affected, but less often or not much later go to the doctor.

The older the students were, the more frequently diagnoses were made because of mental illnesses or disorders. It turned out that the diagnoses are made much more frequently among students as they get older, as compared to those in gainful employment.

Study reforms could be partly responsible
Already in the health report 2011, the Techniker Krankenkasse had reported that more and more students are suffering from mental illness. TK boss Prof. dr. Norbert Klusen suspects that recent reforms in academic education are not „to pass the student without a trace“. In addition, a recent Forsa study of around 1000 male and female high school students showed that one in two suffer from stress symptoms. About 50 percent said they feel „often or constantly stressed“.

As the main cause, the respondents said that exam pressure, lack of time and financial worries are crucial. Often, the students complained of discomfort such as agitation, headache, fatigue, fatigue, nervousness and falling asleep. One in ten also admitted that they had taken psychotropic drugs to control stress. Many of those affected lamented the shortening of the study period. With the introduction of the new study courses, there was hardly any room for learning and personality development. (Sb)

Also read:
Makes the study mentally ill?
Stress: trigger and impact
More and more students are reaching for Ritalin
Food for´s brain: high performance through nutrition
Increase in mental illness in adolescents

Image: Stephanie Hofschlaeger