WellFleet Insurance Plans Support Mental Health for Students at UC Irvine

Summary: WellFleet Insurance plans support mental health for students at UC Irvine by offering coverage for outpatient services, virtual outpatient services, and residential treatment for mental health disorders.

Key Points:

• College can be a stressful time for young adults.
• The cumulative effects of being away from home, more coursework and study time than high school, and new social situations can increase risk of exacerbating existing mental health disorders or problems.
• These pressures can also contribute to the development of mental health disorders that were not present before college
• Some serious mental health disorders, such as schizophrenia, most often develop

College, Mental Health, and the Transition to Adulthood

When you go to college, it’s often a mixed bag of emotions. You may be excited to finally get away from home and your parents, immerse yourself in a new physical and social environment, explore subjects and academic material at a new and more advanced level, and take your first proactive steps toward adulthood and the rest of your life.

On the other hand, all that may also terrify you.

Yes, as the adage goes, pressure makes diamonds, but let’s be realistic: you’re not a grain of sand.

When you get to college you want all the support you can get from anyone and any place you can get it. For students at UC Irvine, WellFleet insurance plans cover care for physical health and care for mental health.

That’s important, because while college can be liberating and fun, it can also – at the same time – be very stressful. Stress is a trigger for the onset of some mental health disorders, but if you’re a college student, you should also know that the age of onset – i.e. when a disorder first appears – for many health disorders is during the years most people attend college.

Age of Onset: When Mental Health Disorders Most Often First Appear

Let’s look at the facts from the study “Age at Onset of Mental Disorders Worldwide: Large-Scale Meta-Analysis of 192 Epidemiological Studies.” Researchers determined the median age of onset for the most common mental health disorders worldwide.

The American Psychological Association (APA) defines age of onset as “…the chronological age at which symptoms of a disease or disorder first appear in an individual.” Therefore, the median age of onset refers to the age at which a person typically first experiences symptoms or receives a diagnosis.

Here are the median ages of onset for the most common mental health disorders:

1. Disorders with median age of onset during childhood and before age 18:

• Neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorders (ASD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), some anxiety disorders such as attachment disorder, specific phobias, and social anxiety: 8-17.

2. Disorders with median age of onset at the adolescent/adult transition period, i.e. 17-18 years old:

• Feeding and eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa: 17-18.

3. Disorders with median age of onset during typical college ages, i.e. 18-22:

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): 19
• Binge eating disorder: 20
• Substance use disorder – cannabis: 19

4. Disorders with median age of onset during young adulthood, i.e. 22-35:

• Personality disorders: 25
• Schizophrenia/schizophrenia spectrum disorders: 25
• Addiction disorders, nonspecific: 25
• Panic disorder (PD): 26
• Alcohol use disorder: 27
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): 30
• Depressive disorders: 30
• Mood disorders, general: 30
• Generalized anxiety disorder: 32
• Bipolar disorder: 33
• Psychotic disorders: 35

Here’s additional data that adds insight and perspective to those ages:

• 34.6% of mental health disorders appear by age 14:
  • 65.4% appear later
• 48.4% of mental health disorder appear by age 18
  • 51.6% appear later
• 62.5% of mental health disorders appear by age 25
  • 37.5% appear later

As you can see, a significant number of mental health disorders have an average age of onset during or after the years most people go to college. And if we count graduate school, people who take time off between high school and college, or people who work and go to college, meaning it takes more than four years, then we can see that the average age of onset for many mental health disorders – including serious menta heath disorders such as schizophrenia and personality disorders – falls during the years that many young adults and adults go to college.

How WellFleet Insurance Plans Support Mental Health for Students at UC Irvine

For outpatient treatment, WellFleet insurance plans cover all services at no charge. For inpatient treatment, which means residential treatment, typically required for severe/serious disorders such as schizophrenia, WellFleet offers excellent coverage that’s realistic and affordable.

We’ll take a moment to focus on how important it is to support the mental health of young adults when they’re away at college.

Take schizophrenia, for instance, with an average onset at around age 25. This means that the early symptoms most often appear earlier, sometimes during adolescence. People with schizophrenia experience symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions.

Hallucinations are defined as seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, or tasting things that are not really there.

Delusions are thoughts and beliefs that are demonstrably false/objectively untrue.

Imagine you’re a 23-year-old college student, and you begin hearing voices no one else can hear, seeing things no one else can see, and believing things no one you know thinks are true. That would be incredibly scary, and likely create a new level of stress on top of the stress already associated with going to college.

If you’re at UC Irvine and have a WellFleet policy, you can see a mental health professional, get a complete psychiatric evaluation and screening, and a diagnosis from an experienced provider. Next, you can engage in treatment at the appropriate level of care. If you identify symptoms early enough, and begin treatment – which many include medication and therapy – you can reduce the likelihood of experiencing full schizophrenia, which can include:

“…loss of contact with reality, hallucinations, delusions, abnormal thinking and behavior, reduced expression of emotions, diminished motivation, a decline in mental function (cognition), and problems in daily functioning, including work, social relationships, and self-care.”

WellFleet offers coverage for inpatient mental health treatment, which is often the best choice for people with serious mental health disorders such as schizophrenia. Inpatient treatment for schizophrenia gives patients the time they need to stabilize, initiate medication, initiate psychotherapy, and develop the tools they need to manage the symptoms of schizophrenia and live a full and productive life.

Why Having the Option of Inpatient, Residential Treatment Matters

Knowing you have someone to turn to for help and somewhere to go in a crisis is a big deal, and can quite literally be lifechanging. Rather than being scared by your symptoms, isolating yourself from others, and risking the negative consequences of escalating symptom severity, you can get the support you need from skilled professionals who know how to help.

With WellFleet insurance plans, students at UC Irvine can access effective, evidence-based coverage across levels of care, from outpatient counseling for mild depression to inpatient residential treatment for serious mental health disorders like schizophrenia.

If you’re the parent of a college age child, or you’re a college student yourself, safeguarding mental health during the critical transition from adolescence to adulthood – which happens to be when a significant number of menta health disorders first appear – should be of paramount importance, and an essential factor to consider during this sensitive and formative years.