Factsheet for prevention workers and student counsellors about the relationship between mental health and the substance use by students in higher education
Being a student is a delicate phase of life, in which many things are changing in the lives of young adults. Many students will live on their own for the first time, which decreases the parental control. Many of them also move from their familiar surroundings to a new city. They also tend to make new social contacts in their time as students. The time as a student is an experimental phase in which the use of alcohol and drugs (also: substance use) among young adults changes and in which the substance use is traditionally relatively high.
International research shows that mental health and substance use influence each other. It is important for both prevention workers and student counsellors to know about the relationship between mental health and substance use among students. This can help them in detecting the (underlying) problems in this target group. This factsheet lists the facts regarding this relationship among students in higher education in the Netherlands.
