Sense of Belonging and Campus Climate? Influences in Upstanding Behavior When Witnessing Emotional Distress/Suicidal Thoughts

Background and Purpose: 20% of adults living with a mental illness and suicide is the third leading cause of death in the United States. In addition to mental illness and suicide, nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is reported by 14-18% of young adults. To accommodate the high prevalence of mental health concerns, including suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB) and NSSI, collegiate settings are increasing their campus mental health resources and services. Despite efforts, barriers to intervening behaviors stand between an individual and their motivation to intervene.

The present study aims to investigate what individual characteristics are associated with an individual’s likelihood to intervene when witnessing another experiencing extreme emotional distress or thoughts of suicide? First, having a history of mental health, NSSI, and/or STB will be associated with higher rates of intervening behaviors compared to participants without such a history. Second, intervening behavior will be associated with a sense of belonging. Lastly, we will explore potential relationships between intervening behaviors, stigma, and campus climate.

Methods: This study used cross-sectional survey data collected from college students (N=7,809) across the United States by the Healthy Minds Network during the 2022-2023 academic year. Intervening behavior was defined utilizing a self-reported, binary variable asking whether they intervened when witnessing someone experiencing significant emotional distress/thoughts of suicide. Utilizing IBM SPSS Statistics Version 29.0, logistic regression models (ɑ=0.05) were conducted to investigate individual differences (i.e., sense of belonging, age, history of STB, and NSSI) to intervening behavior. Cross-tabulations were conducted to investigate views on campus climate and stigma among participants who engaged in intervening behaviors.

Results: In the current study, the second hypothesis was supported with sense of belonging being a significant predictor of intervening behavior (OR=0.80; 95% CI = [0.74;0.87]). The first hypothesis was not supported, indicating there is no relationship between self-reported history of STB and NSSI with intervening behaviors. Within the sample, 30.93% of participants at least somewhat agreed that most people would think less of an individual who received mental health treatment, although only 2.6% thought this personally. 70.16% of participants at least somewhat believed they attended a campus that looks after one another. The majority of participants who intervened at least somewhat agreed that they are responsible for helping classmates (77.80%) and friends (94.87%) struggling.

Conclusions and Implications: This study highlights the importance of a sense of belonging on college campuses and bringing awareness to mental health help-seeking to increase intervening behavior. Social work discipline upholds a holistic and strengths perspective, which emphasizes the importance of the surrounding environment such as having social support. Future research should incorporate the unique characteristics of college students, who are often more prone to making decisions based on peer interaction and support. Lastly, there is a need for qualitative studies to explore how having a history of STB and NSSI may influence one’s intervening behavior, as there may be underlying psychological constructs that may be inhibiting one’s decision to intervene.