The Relationship of Mental Health and Academic Performance of College Students

Mental health is defined as the cognitive and behavioral well-being. The word “mental health”

is often used to describe the absence of mental disorder. Mental health is significant in our daily lives.

As we deal life, it influences our collective and individual ability on how we think, feel, and act.

Moreover, it also helps how to cope up with stress, and make life decisions. Mental and behavioral

disorders account for about 14 percent of the global disease burden, and as many as 450 million

people suffer from these conditions, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In the early

part of 2020, the Philippine WHO Special Initiative for Mental Health reveals that at least 3.6 million

Filipinos suffer from a single form of mental, neurological, and drug use disorder. The relation

between mental health and Academic performance has been reported variously in different studies.

The present research aims to study the Relation between Mental health and Academic Performance

in athletic and non-athletic Students of the Islamic Azad University Ahvaz branch, Iran. For this

purpose, 200 students Includes 100 athletic and 100 non-athletic were selected via random cluster

sampling method. In order to collect data, the Goldberg general health questionnaire (GHQ-28) was

used. The students’ total average score was used as an index of their Academic performance. Finally,

the data were analyzed though using correlation coefficient and independent t-test at the level of

confidence of 95%. The results showed that general health and some of its components, such as

depression and anxiety, had a significant relation with educational performance, while no significant

relation was observed between Academic performance and other components such as physical

symptoms and social performance disorders. According to the findings of this research, it can be

concluded that the higher the mental health of the students, the better their educational performance,

although it seems that the students’ educational performance is also affected by other factors and

their interactional effects as well (Mehdi Bostani, 2014:163-165).  Mental health was a significant
predictor of future academic performance and that, overall, students whose mental health improved

between first and third grade made better academic progress than students whose mental health did

not improve or worsened. Our findings suggest that school-based mental health programs like skill

for life may help improve students’ academic outcomes (Michael Murphy, 2016). Mental health

problems represent a potentially important but relatively unexplored factor in explaining human

capital accumulation during college. We conduct the first study, to our knowledge, of how mental

health predicts academic success during college in a random longitudinal sample of students. We

find that depression is a significant predictor of lower GPA and higher probability of dropping out,

controlling for prior academic performance and other variables. The association between depression

and academic outcomes is strongest among students with a positive anxiety disorder screen. In

within-person estimates using our longitudinal sample, we find again that co-occurring depression

and anxiety are associated with lower GPA, and we find that symptoms of eating disorders are also

associated with lower GPA. This descriptive study highlights the policy relevance of generating more

definitive causal estimates of the effect of mental health on college success, which will likely require a

randomized trial (Daniel Eisenberg, 2009). Mental health problems can affect many areas of students’

lives, reducing their quality of life, academic achievement, physical health, and satisfaction with the

college experience, and negatively impacting relationships with friends and family members. These

issues can also have long-term consequences for students, affecting their future employment, earning

potential, and overall health. (Eisenberg, D, 2007). An inverse relationship between mental health

and academic achievement is a well-known phenomenon in the scientific literature. However, how

and when this association develops is not fully understood and there is a lack of longitudinal,

population-based studies on young children. Early intervention is important if associations are to be

found already during childhood. The aim of the present study was to investigate the development of

the association between mental health and academic performance during different developmental
periods of childhood and adolescence (Sarah Agnafors, 2020). depression is a significant predictor of

lower GPA and higher probability of dropping out, particularly among students who also have a

positive screen for an anxiety disorder. In within-person estimates using our longitudinal sample, we

find again that co-occurring depression and anxiety are associated with lower GPA, and we find that

symptoms of eating disorders are also associated with lower GPA. This descriptive study suggests

potentially large economic returns from programs to prevent and treat mental health problems

among college students, and highlights the policy relevance of evaluating the impact of such

programs on academic outcomes using randomized trials (Daniel Eisenberg, 2009). Mental health

problems in early childhood and adolescence increase the risk for poor academic performance,

indicating the need for awareness and treatment to provide fair opportunities to education (Mimmi

Barmark, 2020).
References

 Sara Agnafors, (2020). Mental health and academic performance: a study on selection and causation
effects from childhood to early adulthood. Soc Psychiatry Epidemiol.
Links:

1. https://www.mentalhealth.gov/basics/what-is-mental-health

2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042814001876

3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4443903/

4. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~daneis/papers/MHacademics.pdf

5. https://www.sprc.org/collegesuniversities/consequences#:~:text=Mental%20health

%20problems%20can%20affect%20a%20student's%20energy%20level%2C%20concentration,

%2C%20and%20optimism%2C%20hindering%20performance.&text=Research%20suggests

%20that%20depression%20is,anxiety%20can%20increase%20this%20association.

6. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00127-020-01934-5

7. https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/bejeap/9/1/article-bejeap.2009.9.1.2191.xml.xml

8. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00127-020-01934-5

9.