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“Lovesick”: Mental Health and Romantic Relationships among College Students

This research investigated the interpersonal impact of self-reported mental health diagnoses and/or perceptions on undergraduate students’ current or most recent romantic relationship. Analysis of data from a 43-item online questionnaire completed by 267 undergraduates revealed that 68.3% of women a...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ritter, Lacey J., Hilliard, Taylor, Knox, David
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9819681/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36612961
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20010641
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author Ritter, Lacey J.
Hilliard, Taylor
Knox, David
author_facet Ritter, Lacey J.
Hilliard, Taylor
Knox, David
author_sort Ritter, Lacey J.
collection PubMed
description This research investigated the interpersonal impact of self-reported mental health diagnoses and/or perceptions on undergraduate students’ current or most recent romantic relationship. Analysis of data from a 43-item online questionnaire completed by 267 undergraduates revealed that 68.3% of women and 52.5% of men reported having either been professionally diagnosed with a mental illness or perceive themselves to be mentally ill based on DSM criteria, with women and white students reporting significantly higher levels. Sociologically speaking, mental illness was found to influence relationship initiation, maintenance, and dissolution in this study. The mental health of the respondents’ potential partners was an important consideration in deciding to form a relationship, particularly for male, white, heterosexuals. When the respondents reported relationship problems, men were more likely to blame such problems on mental health issues than women. Finally, though more respondents reported having broken up with a romantic partner who had mental health issues than had romantic partners break up with them, there were no significant gender, race, or sexual orientation differences in the termination of these romantic relationships. Study findings emphasize the importance of acknowledging and providing mental health resources—particularly interpersonal options—for emerging adults in the college setting.
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spelling pubmed-98196812023-01-07 “Lovesick”: Mental Health and Romantic Relationships among College Students Ritter, Lacey J. Hilliard, Taylor Knox, David Int J Environ Res Public Health Article This research investigated the interpersonal impact of self-reported mental health diagnoses and/or perceptions on undergraduate students’ current or most recent romantic relationship. Analysis of data from a 43-item online questionnaire completed by 267 undergraduates revealed that 68.3% of women and 52.5% of men reported having either been professionally diagnosed with a mental illness or perceive themselves to be mentally ill based on DSM criteria, with women and white students reporting significantly higher levels. Sociologically speaking, mental illness was found to influence relationship initiation, maintenance, and dissolution in this study. The mental health of the respondents’ potential partners was an important consideration in deciding to form a relationship, particularly for male, white, heterosexuals. When the respondents reported relationship problems, men were more likely to blame such problems on mental health issues than women. Finally, though more respondents reported having broken up with a romantic partner who had mental health issues than had romantic partners break up with them, there were no significant gender, race, or sexual orientation differences in the termination of these romantic relationships. Study findings emphasize the importance of acknowledging and providing mental health resources—particularly interpersonal options—for emerging adults in the college setting. MDPI 2022-12-30 /pmc/articles/PMC9819681/ /pubmed/36612961 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20010641 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Ritter, Lacey J.
Hilliard, Taylor
Knox, David
“Lovesick”: Mental Health and Romantic Relationships among College Students
title “Lovesick”: Mental Health and Romantic Relationships among College Students
title_full “Lovesick”: Mental Health and Romantic Relationships among College Students
title_fullStr “Lovesick”: Mental Health and Romantic Relationships among College Students
title_full_unstemmed “Lovesick”: Mental Health and Romantic Relationships among College Students
title_short “Lovesick”: Mental Health and Romantic Relationships among College Students
title_sort “lovesick”: mental health and romantic relationships among college students
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9819681/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36612961
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20010641
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