More Than ‘Resilience’: A Scoping Review of Institutional and Societal Risk and Protective Factors for UK Undergraduate Mental Ill-Health

Poor mental health among undergraduate students is often addressed through interventions which aim to improve resilience, mindfulness or similar qualities. This shifts the responsibility of improving student mental health onto students themselves and obscures the effect of institutions and societies. This scoping review aimed to identify what is known and what gaps exist in the literature about institutional and societal risk and protective factors for UK undergraduate student mental ill-health. Eleven databases, Google and reference lists were searched for journal articles and grey literature published between 2005 and 2024, which examined institutional or societal risk or protective factors for UK undergraduate student mental ill-health. Forty-four publications met the inclusion criteria for the review. Institutional factors identified related to studying, getting support, university life and interventions. Societal factors identified related to state finance and immigration systems, travel and transport, and the COVID pandemic. These factors are not culturally specific to the UK but rather represent issues of concern for university policymakers and practitioners internationally. This review highlights the importance of student-centred policies, particularly for financial and study-related factors, and providing training for university staff on undergraduate mental health and changes they can make to teaching, support services and the campus environment for students generally and sub-groups of students with particular needs. Potentially fruitful avenues of further research for improving undergraduate student mental health include the impact of campus culture, specific university policies, university facilities and built environments, specific national/regional policies and laws, structural inequalities, cultural norms and local environments or communities.