The association between higher education attendance and common mental health problems among young people in England: evidence from two population-based cohorts

Background: It is unclear whether young people who attend higher education are at increased risk of common mental disorders, compared with those who do not attend. We aimed to investigate whether higher education attendance was associated with increased symptoms of common mental disorders (depression and anxiety) in young people before, during and after attendance.

Methods: For this cohort study, we used two cohorts-the Longitudinal Studies of Young People in England (LSYPE1: N=4832, 55·8% [2696 of 4832] students; LSYPE2: n=6128, 50·7% [3104 of 6128] students), beginning in 2004 for LSYPE1 and 2013 for LSYPE2. Both cohorts were designed to be nationally representative, with schools in England as the primary sampling unit. Symptoms of common mental disorders were assessed with the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) before (age 14-17 years for both cohorts), during (age 18-19 years for LSYPE2), and after (age 25 years for LSYPE1) higher education. We assessed differences in GHQ scores using unadjusted and confounder adjusted linear regression.

Findings: At ages 18-19 years (LSYPE2), mean GHQ-12 scores were 12·0 (SD 6·4) among students and 11·6 (SD 6·8) among non-students (adjusted mean difference 0·36, 95% CI 0·05 to 0·68; p=0·024). In LSYPE1, young people who attended higher education at ages 18-20 years had higher symptoms of common mental disorders at ages 16-17 years than those who did not (0·60, 0·30 to 0·90). However, after higher education (age 25 years for LSYPE1), there was no evidence of a difference-mean GHQ-12 scores were 11·4 (SD 5·5) among those who had attended and 11·7 (SD 6·4) among those who had not attended (-0·25, -0·66 to 0·16; p=0·23).

Interpretation: We found evidence that students had more symptoms of common mental disorders than non-students at ages 18-19 years, albeit the effect size was small and there was no evidence of a longer-term difference at the age of 25 years.

Funding: Department for Education.