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ILA #3

The awareness of mental illness is a topic that has been prevalent on college campuses

due to the overwhelming nature of college, but what are college campuses doing to help their

students? “Evaluating a Student-Led Mental Health Awareness Campaign,” is an article that

discusses a study done on a college campus, in which undergraduate students were given the

opportunity to learn more about mental health awareness and campus resources. The authors,

Dominique Giroux and Elisa Geiss explain their study done and how it shows the importance in

college students being aware of their resources to receive treatment. I found this article through

the University of South Carolina library databases. I chose the “Academic search complete”

database and began typing in key words, such as college campus, mental health, and counseling,

that would lead me to an article related to my topic. I then read through many titles and chose

those that seemed relevant to my topic, and narrowed my options down after reading the

abstracts. I chose this specific article because it not only talks about the prevalence of mental

health issues, but also talks about an action taken to increase awareness of mental health on a

college campus. Mental health issues are a rising concern, especially on college campuses, and

this article gives an example of an action that can be taken to let students feel comfortable

seeking help and to drop the stigma around mental health concerns.

College students face a lot of stress as young adults, and these factors can lead to mental

health concerns, but these mental illnesses are not always being addressed. The authors of the
article state that “—individuals who seek treatment for a mental disorder are deemed more

‘emotionally unstable, less interesting and less confident’ than persons seeking treatment for a

physical ailment” (Giroux and Geiss 61). This statement leads to the argument that students

don’t feel comfortable enough to seek help for mental health concerns. The authors explained

that their goal was to try and reduce stigma around seeking help for mental health, and they

tested this with a small liberal arts college. Many groups within that school also helped to hold a

mental health awareness week, in which students could learn more about people’s individual

stories, the commonness of mental illness, and resources in campus. The prevalence on mental

health issues on college campuses is something to be aware of, and the group that helped to lead

this campaign took one step closer to making a comfortable environment for students to open up.

Giroux and Geiss stated that “The results from the present study support the importance of

evaluating a mental health awareness

campaign to understand how stigma may decrease in specific populations” (65). The week-long

mental health awareness campaign helped to decrease the presence of a stigma around seeking

help, and this is something that should be done at every college campus.

This article is the Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research, and comes from The

International Honor Society in Psychology. I found this source through the USC library database

so that I knew it was credible, but the information provided also showed me that it was credible.

The authors showed and described their own research that they did. I also did some research on

the authors to find out that they have written multiple psychology-based articles together. The

authors discuss that these mental health campaigns are important to college campuses, because

the stigma surrounding the concept keeps students from seeking help. Students should and need
to feel comfortable with their mental health. University staff and students are the those who came

together to make this campaign happen, and it is possible to do at every college campus.
 Works Cited

Giroux, Dominique, and Elisa Geiss. “Evaluating a Student-Led Mental Health Awareness

Campaign.” Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research, vol. 24, no. 1, Spring 2019, pp.

61–66. EBSCOhost, doi:10.24839/2325-7342.JN24.1.61.