Boarding, psychological well-being and distress: A survey of secondary school students attending boarding schools in the UK

The mental health of children and young people has received a lot of attention from researchers and news media in recent years. It is recognised that exposure to stressful events is one of the strongest determinants of psychopathology. Significant distress experienced in childhood in particular may increase the vulnerability to experiencing mental health problems later in life.

Literature Review

The aim of the review was to explore the literature examining the exposure to adversity among university students in the UK. A total of 29 papers met the inclusion criteria and were synthesised narratively. The prevalence rates of childhood trauma ranged from 26% to 56.2%. The rates of exposure to lifetime adversity ranged from 39% to 88.6%. The findings of this review suggest that a substantial proportion of university students in the UK have been exposed to some form of adversity at some point of their live. There is also evidence that there is a link between adversity exposure and symptoms of psychological distress However, varied definitions and assessment measures used in those papers led to complications in interpretation of these results.

Empirical project

The study investigated the levels of anxiety, depression, resilience, and life satisfaction among pupils attending boarding schools in the UK. A total of 243 participants (94 boarders, 149 day students) from seven boarding schools, completed a set of online questionnaires. The study found possible differences in the levels of psychological distress between boarders and day students, with boarders faring worse on mental health. However, complexities in this relatively small data set, in particular the effects of gender on well-being variables in the context of unequal proportions of males and females in the boarding and day samples, mean that these results should be interpreted with caution.