Mental health study for home-stuck students  

Ezra Peters, Staff Writer

With the advent of COVID-19 and an eerily uncertain future, students are facing a unique and unprecedented slew of issues on top of being a normal student. The University of Michigan is currently sending out a survey to many Madison College students called the “Healthy Minds Study” in an attempt to “Better understand student mental health and related issues and sources of support.” 

In the email they sent with the link to the survey, they state that the results of the survey are planned to be used to get a “representative picture of their student population so that we can improve services and programs.” The results will be  processed and archived by the ones administering the survey, the University of Michiganwho, in the interest of privacy, will be separating their contact information from the responses. 

 The database that will be created will be available to Madison College, so this survey would be an effective way to have your voice heard and your unique situation understood. The survey is an in depth questionnaire approximately 25 minutes in length that covers topics like racial demographics, income and food security, method of class taking, general mental state and much more. 

The questionnaire can ask about some very sensitive topics, so if you aren’t comfortable answering any question, you can skip them as you need to; You can always come back to questions later if you feel like you need more time to think about them. The University of Michigan makes it a point to properly define the terms it uses, making its questions much more clear and overall easier to answer.  

At the end of the surveyyou can receive an evaluation on anxiety, depression and likelihood of having an eating disorder.  

If all the other upsides of this study don’t interest you, then you may be happy to know that as an incentive, you will be entered into a drawing for cash prizes in amounts of $100 and $500 and, as a more unique drawing for Madison College, a Nintendo Switch. The survey closes on Nov. 10, so check your school email for the link.