Abstract

Michaela Hunt, in her Thesis titled, The Importance of Properly Addressing Mental Health on College Campuses, discusses an array of factors that contribute to the conversation around mental health relative to diagnosis, treatment, and adequate patient care. In Section III titled Proposal Paper, Michaela utilizes 10 peer-reviewed sources from her comprehensive literature review to dive into four major themes regarding appropriate ways to address mental illnesses. She discusses the climate of mental health on college campuses by studying trends in help-seeking behaviors and mental health literacy. She also delves into barriers to treatment, such as racial disparities, low socio-economic statuses, and stigma. She then continues to unpack the ways in which stigma impacts an individual’s ability to receive adequate care by considering the effect of labels, severity of illnesses, public stigma, internalized stigma, and gender differences. Lastly, she compares the Providence College Personal Counseling Center to three local universities and dissects the ways in which the Providence College has changed throughout the years in providing students with the level of care that they need.