| dc.description.abstract | Abstract: The aim of this study is to find the
nature of problems and the demographic
characteristics of the service seekers of KDU
support centre which was established 2019. It
will also look at the required future directions of
KDU support centre. Mental health issues
among the university students are becoming an
alarming problem worldwide. Recent reports
reveal that the situation is the same in the Sri
Lankan student community. Foreign and local
studies indicte that there are multiple
contributing factors to these issues includng
academic, relationship, logistic (food and
accomodation, adjustment etc). Kotelawala
Defence University has its unique culture
compared to any other university in the country
being the only university which produce
military professionals to the nation, enlisting
student not only based on their Z score and
conducting psychological assesment before
students are selected. After reporting few
suicidal incidences among the students and
various behavioural issues among the KDU the
department of psychiatry and administration
decided toestablish a support center in August
2019 with the aim of helping the KDU students
and the staff with psychological counselling and
psycho therapy. This paper summarises details
of only the psychological issues reported to the
KDU support center by 35 KDU students 10 satff
members and their demographic and other
related information without divulging their
identity. Findings indicated that the most
common psychological issue among students
was depression. It was observed that most of the
service seekers had several comorbidities.
Further, relationship issues, adjustment issues
and anxiety were prominent in this sample. It
was observed that stigma towards mental
illness is still playing a considerable role for not
seeking help for mental health issues.It is
recommended to take necessary actions to
minimize stigma within the university
community. KDU helpline which was recently
started will be main referral pathway for KDU
Support centre in future.
Keywords— KDU support center, psychological
issues in University students, prevelance | en_US |
