Social contact is the key factor that can stop underprivileged students spiralling into depression, Australian psychologists say.

A study by researchers at the University of Newcastle has found that students who consider themselves of working-class stock feel isolated from their campus peers. This leaves them vulnerable to depressive symptoms that can hamper their studies.

¡°Social contact is the mechanism through which social class and mental health are linked,¡± study leader Mark Rubin concludes in a project . ¡°Social class determines the level of social contact students have at university, and social contact ¨C or lack thereof ¨C determines the level of mental health.¡±

The researchers asked about 750 first-year Newcastle undergraduates to rate their ¡°perceived social status¡± by comparing their parents¡¯ wealth, occupations and educational levels?with those of other Australians. The students also indicated how much face-to-face, online or phone contact they had experienced with friends over the previous week.

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More than 300 of the participants repeated the exercise several months later, allowing the researchers to ¡°reach firmer conclusions about the causality¡±, Dr Rubin said.

¡°We¡¯ve shown that time and money are the reasons why [working-class students] lack social integration, and that lack of social integration can have an impact on mental health,¡± he told Times Higher Education. ¡°Research from the US shows that it can also be detrimental to their grades.

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¡°With those types of outcomes, it needs to be taken seriously. If we can reduce social-class differences in social integration, maybe that will reduce social-class differences in mental health and grades.¡±

The team recommends interventions such as subsidising poorer students¡¯ travel, accommodation, childcare and social events. It says that online social networking may also meet the needs of students poor in both time and money.

Co-researcher Olivia Evans, who has started a PhD investigating students¡¯ mental health, conceded that any such intervention would have to be ¡°organic¡±. ¡°You can¡¯t force social media on students ¨C they won¡¯t engage if they feel they¡¯ve got the university watching over them.¡±

While working-class students may feel that they ¡°don¡¯t fit in¡± at university, Ms Evans said, the sense of isolation persists beyond the campus. Evidence suggests that many experience social isolation ¡°even though they¡¯re known for being community-based and dependent on one another¡±.

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¡°There¡¯s something about having less money and social status that doesn¡¯t provide the things you need to forge strong connections and support networks,¡± she said.

Dr Rubin said that while the project had focused on students¡¯ ¡°subjective¡± social status, analyses using more conventional measures of socio-economic background had yielded similar results.

He said that when working-class people went to university, the culture shock was akin to visiting a foreign country. They experienced a ¡°double hit¡± of the depression and stress sweeping students worried about their finances, grades and employment prospects.

¡°There¡¯s a lot of mental health problems in the general [university] population,¡± he said. ¡°For these working-class students, this minority group, it¡¯s even worse.¡±

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john.ross@timeshighereducation.com