Initial Topic Idea

Even though the research Salami studied has widened the understanding between the socioeconomic position of black students and their mental health, the research would have been better if more research was made to compare students who attended historically black colleges/universities versus predominately white universities.  Salami mentions that “underrepresented groups experience ‘minority stress,’” yet doesn't really talk about it any further. She brings up wanting to bring “specific attention” to minority stress, but with a study for that specific topic, comparing black to white students would likely not give important results. It's important to compare black students in schools they would likely face racism in, PWIs, to students who would face different experiences, students attending other colleges or historically black colleges. The research conducted only targets African-American students, but it can also be beneficial to repeat the study but with more or all minority gro...

  Citation: Cordaro, Millie, et al. “Pandemic-Specific Factors Related to Generalized Anxiety Disorder During the Initial COVID-19 Protocols in the United States.” Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 2021, pp. 1–21, doi:10.1080/01612840.2020.1867675. Link: https://www-tandfonline-com.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/doi/full/10.1080/01612840.2020.1867675 Summary: This article examines pandemic-specific factors that are related to generalized anxiety disorder. Since the pandemic just started last year, very little is known about the psychological stress and strain it has put on people. This article studies the rates of anxiety of people during the pandemic and identifies the factors that contributed to anxiety disorder due to the pandemic. Author: Millie Cordaro is a psychologist and works in the Department of Psychology at Texas State University. Her areas of interest are counseling psychology and developmental psychology. She specializes in the areas she discusses in her articles. Ke...

Citation: Ross, Virginia, and Newton, MA. Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention. “Depression, Anxiety, and Alcohol or Other Drug Use among College Students. Prevention Updates.” Education Development Center, Inc, Education Development Center, Inc, 1 Feb. 2004. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED485601&site=ehost-live Summary: This article discusses the rising drug and alcohol abuse in college students. It talks about the main reasons why college students start using alcohol and drugs, which is due to the environment and stress they face in college. Students who do not get help start using drugs and alcohol as a remedy or medication. Author:  The author of this article is Virginia Ross. There is not much information about her on the internet, however, the article shows a Ph.D. next to her name, which implies that she is knowledgeable about what she is writing about. Key terms: Self Medication Hypothesis: stude...

My specific example is a Pitt University Student whose name is Leah Mensch. In the article that she posted, she talks about how Covid-19 affected her mental health. Before the pandemic, Leah described herself as a solitary person. She did not really like going out to parties or anything and she got anxiety from this which directly relates to one of the factors that affect mental health about the social life of students and how it could cause anxiety among them. When Covid hit and colleges switched to a virtual online setting, there were some things that Leah looked forward to since she had an excuse not to go out. However, she quickly realized that even though she was a solitary person she still felt very lonely and that was the biggest factor that affected her mental health. She also said how sitting in her room all day doing homework and watching lectures was mentally and physically exhausting. She also said how she felt cramped in the small space because she cannot move around that ...

A theoretical frame that I used in this paper was "coping style". The coping style is the way someone confronts and deals with a stressful situation. This is very important in college students because some students feel so stressed about college and it's important they know how to handle hard situations. More specifically, one of the coping methods that students use is the self-medication hypothesis. This hypothesis describes how people use substances in order to make themselves feel better in stressful situations. Since they don't want to feel worse then they start taking drugs again. This is an endless cycle that can lead to drug abuse and a lot of students experience this because they do not get the proper help they need. Source Used: Ross, Virginia, and Newton, MA. Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention. “Depression, Anxiety, and Alcohol or Other Drug Use among College Students. Prevention Updates.” Education Development Center, Inc, Educati...