Campus Life and Overall Wellness: An Online Survey

To improve mental health and social functioning of students, the 2006 UCLA Ashe Center Student Survey examined the influence of overall mental health and associated behaviors on campus life.

An online cross-sectional survey of 2,203 students currently enrolled at UCLA. Mental health was ascertained using six mental health scales adopted from RAND. Focus areas included: overall mental health, anxiety, depression, positive affect, psychological distress and well-being. Campus life refers to a set of 25-items related to different dimensions of students' wellness, including social, physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual.

Most (70%) respondents were female and undergraduates (72%). Most students were Caucasian (38%) and Chinese or Chinese American (20%). 27% of students were foreign born and 34% reported that English was not their first language. Over 20% of students reported feeling tense, “high strung,” anxious or worried a good bit of the time. 27% of students reported feeling depressed at times. Using multivariate regression analysis, preliminary findings indicate that overall mental health and number of days students could not perform their normal activities due to physical illness or injuries positively predicts their wellness; however, the average hours of sleep per night during the week does not.

Our sample resembles the increasingly diverse demographic of today's college students: 30% minorities, 20% foreign born or first generation, and 55% female (Choy, 2002). Thus, these factors should be considered in the students' mental health needs. Findings indicate that students are experiencing mental health problems, which in turn is affecting their wellness in various ways.