Mental and behavioral health holds an impact for those in our campus community, and the ability to receive straightforward care is vital for students. Services need to be easily accessible and prioritized for students on our campus, and I can understand why people believe the hassle of completing paperwork doesn’t align with these needs. While there is a wide range of problems within our current processes, time-consuming intakes aren’t the problem.
Mental health intakes are understood to be a tedious process for patients. Providers want to have a comprehensive understanding of someone’s medical history, life experiences and reasons for seeking services. This process is important for providing accurate care but can take multiple hours to complete for someone seeking this type of care for the first time.
Multiple efforts to expand resources have been evident since the fall of 2022. The Student Mental Health Task Force has been assessing the practices on our campus and recommending improvements over the past year. NC State has embedded counselors within each college, become a JED Campus and partnered with a teletherapy platform to offer additional, free appointments for students.
During crises, there are emergency resources accessible for students that don’t go through traditional intake routes. Group counseling can connect people experiencing similar situations and identities and can be accessed through Zoom, drop-in style. Our campus also offers academic and career counseling services that operate through different departments on campus. There are also confidential, free drop-in counseling sessions that don’t require formal appointments.
This is not to say students are fully aware of how to easily access the range of mental health resources available to them. I believe clear, tangible efforts to ensure all students are regularly informed about specific programs is important. However, there is a large number of easily accessible resources that do not require paperwork to take advantage of.
The processes to receive individualized care are far from perfect, and intake forms are not available outside of a narrow window of time on weekdays. The intake process is time consuming, and for busy students, this may be a timely process that would be best completed over time and submitted on demand.
Students may end up having to choose class and work commitments over taking first steps pursuing their own mental health at their convenience. I believe the availability to review the forms in question so students can know what information to gather should be fixed urgently.
However, I believe individualized therapy and psychiatric services should require additional steps and paperwork due to the serious consequences professional opinions can hold for the individuals receiving this care.
Hasty diagnoses connected to insurance providers will remain on an individual’s permanent medical record, so it is important that providers take every consideration available before attributing these labels to individuals.
Interactions between sexual and mental health are extensive and medications for one area can influence both areas of someone’s wellness. For example, premenstrual dysphoric disorder is commonly misdiagnosed as bipolar disorder. Bipolar is a neurodegenerative disorder with a different course of treatment than PMDD, and receiving its diagnosis can interfere with an individual’s ability to serve in government positions or donate blood.
There are also nutritional and external health factors misattributed to psychiatric conditions. For example, unidentified celiac disease can result in behavioral changes that correlate with conditions such as depression. Celiac is an immunodeficiency disorder that can hold serious consequences for an individual's health, and someone seeking psychiatric care may not consider the nutritional components without a full intake.
A mental diagnosis is often required as a prerequisite for prescription medications through insurance providers. While psychiatry is the field involved with medication, psychologists can provide diagnoses as well. It is important for providers to take time and not jump to conclusions when categorizing mental health disorders for individuals.
While a difficulty to focus in class may impact someone’s ability to succeed academically and interact with peers, a hasty diagnosis of ADHD and relevant prescription can pose cognitive risks to those who don’t have the condition. Antipsychotic medications are associated with the development of diabetes. Making sure those who are diagnosing and prescribing care have as much information as possible from the beginning is vital for the health of their patients.
While they can be beneficial, diagnoses and prescriptions have serious implications and risks and should require as much information as possible. We can create a campus environment where students easily access the support they need without reducing the information these providers have available for providing care.
Optimizing mental health services on our campus requires addressing the intake process, but we shouldn’t reduce the information collected. There's a pressing need to streamline procedures and we should do so through extending availability windows and enhancing awareness of resources such as drop-in counseling and crisis services.
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