University of New Brunswick Counselling Services wants to gain a clearer picture of alcohol use on the UNB and St. Thomas University campuses.
UNB Counselling director Rice Fuller said he hopes to send out an alcohol-use survey via email for students on both campuses.
There’s a lack of local data about drinking habits on campus, Fuller said, and in light of the death of STU student Andrew Bartlett in 2010, he thinks the data could be useful.
Bartlett, a fourth-year student, died after a heavy night of drinking at a rookie party for the men’s volleyball team.
Fuller said the death of Jonathan Andrews is another reason to look for more detailed statistics on campus drinking at STU and UNB. Andrews was a first-year student at Acadia University. Last September, Andrews was found unresponsive in his dorm room after a night of drinking. He later died in hospital.
“Often people have the idea that students that have alcohol problems in university, that those will just kind of end once they stop university. That’s not the case,” Fuller said.
“A significant portion of people that have problems with alcohol in university continue to have them after they’ve graduated.”
Fuller said students coming to UNB Counselling for problems with alcohol tend to have other health problems, including impaired academic functioning and mental health issues.
Last year, 924 different people visited UNB Counselling. A little more than 22 per cent of those visitors were STU students.
Per capita, more STU students on average use UNB Counselling than UNB students, Fuller said.
Statistics show rates of binge drinking are higher in the Maritime provinces than in the rest of Canada.
The Canadian Campus Survey, conducted in 2004 by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, found 24.5 per cent of students surveyed in Atlantic Canada reported “heavy-frequent drinking.”
This is higher than any other region in Canada, with Ontario the closest, at 18.8 per cent of students who reported heavy-frequent drinking.
“With the profile of the issues raised with the [deaths of Bartlett and Andrews], we just want to make sure we’re doing what we should be doing to try and address the alcohol problems, try and help people to moderate their drinking,” Fuller said.
UNB has yet to approve the survey. When they do, Fuller will approach STU to see if it would like to participate.
Since January, UNB Counselling has also been collecting data about students’ drug and alcohol problems from an electronic form students fill out when visiting the clinic.
The form also includes questions about previous mental health issues, suicide, financial stress, self-harm and relationship problems.
The information helps UNB Counselling tailor its services to students, Fuller said.
Last week, CBC reported 260 people have asked for counselling since the new questions were added in January.
Thirty-five per cent of those people have reported harming themselves, which can include cutting, burning and scratching.
Fuller wasn’t surprised by the numbers because the number of people self-harming has been on the rise for the last 15 to 20 years.
Often people self-harm to relieve pain or stress, he said.
But he cautioned using the numbers to make an assumption about university students as a whole.
“I wouldn’t consider them reflective of the overall campus population. That just says something about the people coming to counselling services.”
