SCHIZOPHRENIA AND THE COLLEGE STUDENT
The American Psychiatric Association (DSM-IV, 1994) states that a diagnosis of schizophrenia is appropriate when a person suffers from delusions, auditory hallucinations, or marked disturbances in thinking, affect, or speech are shown by an individual. The person must also have deteriorated from a previous level of functioning concerning work, interpersonal relationships, self-care, and the like.
Further, the disorder must have been present for at least six months at some point in the individual's life as well as having been present for at least one month at the time of diagnosis. Finally, organic mental disorders and affective disorders must be ruled out as causes of the symptoms.
Schizophrenia has received a great deal of research attention, primarily because its lifetime prevalence rate in America is about one percent; thus, it affects millions of people directly---occurring at about equal rates among men and women (Bourdon, 1992). According to Sue, Sue and Sue (1994), schizophrenia can occur to people in all walks of life and all socioeconomic strata. The purpose of this paper is to explore the occurrence of the condition in the college population and the response of college mental health services to the problem.
Research on Schizophrenia in the College Population
It seems reasonable to suppose that designing and implementing appropriate mental health programs for college students with schizophrenia must be based, at least in part, on an adequate knowledge of the incidence/prevalence rates. Unfortunately, however, there is a dearth of recent as well as comprehensive studies of schizophrenia in the college population in general and the incidence/prevalence ratess of the condition in the college population in particular.
In one study conducted by Offer and Spiro (1987), it was stated that about 20 percent of students entering college evidence some form of mental ...