Is food insecurity a barrier to dental student success?

PURPOSE: The prevalence of food insecurity among undergraduate students is higher than the national average and associated with adverse academic outcomes. Our objective was to describe the prevalence of food insecurity, food access behaviors, and associations between food security status and well-being in a dental student population. METHODS: All dental students (N = 328) enrolled in the College of Dentistry at the University of Iowa in the fall 2019 semester were invited to participate. The survey was designed to query demographic variables, food security status (i.e., the United States Department of Agriculture's 10-item Adult Food Security Module), and food- or hunger-related well-being (i.e., sleep, academic performance, and stress). The survey was administered using the Qualtrics survey platform. Following the initial invitation, students were sent two reminders and allowed 3 weeks for completion. RESULTS: The survey response rate was 24.7%. Forty-seven percent of respondents were food insecure. Food insecure students were more likely to attend collegiate programming (e.g., lunch and learns) for the primary purpose of obtaining free food than their food secure peers (p <0.001). In addition, food insecure students were more likely to report experiencing food- or hunger-related sleep (p = 0.001), study or academic performance (p <0.001), or stress difficulties than their food secure peers (p <0.001). CONCLUSION: The prevalence of food insecurity in dental students was relatively high and associated with adverse food- and/or hunger-related well-being outcomes. Food insecurity might be a barrier to dental student success, compromising their immediate health and ability to learn.

The role of mental health counseling in college students' academic success: An interrupted time series analysis.

Retention remains a problem for postsecondary institutions and college students. To address these issues, researchers have sought to identify factors of college success and retention. Findings have consistently shown the importance of psychosocial factors and mental health on college students' academic success. As such, university and college counseling centers are well positioned to enhance students' academic success by addressing psychosocial distress. However, existing literature on the effect of counseling on college students' academic success is mixed, and limitations exist. To address previous limitations of the literature, this study utilized an interrupted time series design to examine differences in students' postcounseling academic success compared to their precounseling academic success. Additionally, we examined the association between changes in students' psychological distress and academic distress for students who endorsed clinical distress at the onset of counseling and changes in their grade point average (GPA) over time. Data for this study consisted of 1,231 clients seen by 49 therapists at a university counseling center. As hypothesized, students' GPAs increased at a greater rate postcounseling compared to precounseling. Additionally, for students who were clinically distressed at the onset of counseling, reductions in their psychological distress were associated with positive changes in their GPA over time, but the relationship between changes in their academic distress and changes in their GPA was not significant. This study suggests that counseling can be beneficial for college students' academic success, in part due to changes in students' psychological distress, but not their academic distress, specifically for clinically distressed students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).