Mentality launches new survey

Two years after its launch, Mentality is conducting another survey to gain insight into stress and mental health at Imperial. The survey will close at the end of June, with results expected to be published by the end of term. According to Mentality chair Ariana Sadr-Hashemi, the previous report focused on getting Imperial-specific statistics on what mental health issues are most prominent in the student body and measuring general attitudes to mental health.

“This survey is more campaign-oriented, aimed at finding out in detail what students use what mental health services, both college and NHS ones, and what their experiences were so we can campaign for improvements,” says Sadr-Hashemi.

The survey will also investigate whether there has been a significant change if any, in the prevalence of mental health issues within the student body since 2015. The initial survey which was conducted in 2015 resulted in a report with several key findings and recommendations. According to Mentality, 20% of respondents at the time stated that they had been diagnosed with a mental illness, and a further 40% of respondents felt that they didn’t have a mental illness but had experienced mental stresses. In addition, 69.5% of Imperial students surveyed reported feeling stressed at least once a week. In comparison an NUS wide study reported 31% of respondents feeling the same way. The report also highlighted the key role of academic pressure in the propagation of stress.

This time the survey hopes to reveal what services people use to get support and their positive and negative experiences with each individual service. Mentality are hoping this will shed more light on what needs to be campaigned for and where most of the focus needs to go. A link to the survey can be found on the Union website.