- What are the reasons for Chinese university students choosing to use or not to use the university’s wellbeing centre?
The first research question focused on understanding why Chinese university students do not use well-being centers at universities. The findings indicate that if students in the study had an emotional or personal problem, approximately half of them (48.19%) might visit’ the student wellbeing center. The findings imply that almost half of the students can easily be convinced to utilize the wellbeing center, or easily dispirited to utilize the services offered at the wellbeing center. This finding indicates that there is a huge potential to improve and promote the utilization of well-being centers among university students in China. 27.71% of the participants showed that they would ‘go if’ someone recommended the services at the well-being centre. This is a suggestion that another large number of students would consider utilizing the wellbeing centre if they were to get recommendations from other people. As such, Chinese universities should be keen on improving the use of wellbeing centres and can focus on developing positive experiences and would encourage people to recommend the services. In addition, 17.47% of the participants said indicated that they ‘will not go’ to the wellbeing centre if they had an emotional or personal problem. This was almost thrice the size that indicated that they ‘will definitely go’ to the wellbeing centre if they had emotional or personal issues.
When asked if they would want to go or not go, they were four major reasons that emerged that were barriers to the students not using the wellbeing centre. First, approximately half of the respondents (48.62%) said they thought the wellbeing centre was useless. This finding is an indication that most students did not see the wellbeing centre as a useful place that would help solve their emotional and personal issues. This also shows that the kind of image that students in Chinese universities have of wellbeing centers is negative and needs to be put into consideration for improvement. Students see the wellbeing centre as an irrelevant place in their lives.
Secondly, privacy concerns were another reason identified as a barrier for students not visiting the wellbeing centre. The findings indicate that 37.61% of the respondents would not consider visiting the wellbeing centre because they were ‘concerned about privacy issues.’ This goes to show that many students are not confident that the wellbeing centre would not respect their private information or keep the information with the utmost confidentiality. As such, universities in china need to focus on ensuring that student privacy is respect and assuring students that the confidentiality of the information and their privacy would be respected at the wellbeing centre. The question regarding privacy concerns can be solved through the adoption of internet-based counseling services.
Thirdly, lack of time was another reason why students do not use wellbeing centre services. The findings indicate that 29.36% of the respondents said there was ‘not time’ for them to visit the wellbeing centre if they had emotional or mental issues. Lack of adequate time had been reported consistently in previous literature as a major reason for low use of students wellbeing services at the universities.
The fourth reason for the lack of utilization of student wellbeing centres is the negative perception of mental health. Negative perception regarding mental health is a major issue in the utilization of mental health services offered in universities. The present study found that 27.52% of the respondents would not visit the wellbeing centres because they ‘feel it’s the place where people with serious mental problems go.’