Abstract
Purpose: The number of students with possible mental problems visiting health room service personnel and seeking advice has been increasing. At the same time, more health room service personnel are experiencing difficulties in health counseling. This study aims to clarify the problems encountered and the current lack of methodology for producing favorable outcomes. Method: A semi-structured interview process was conducted with five health room service personnel at their small private university or junior college. Results: A total of 197 useful codes pertaining to health room service personnel's difficulties in health consulting were obtained from the interviews. Six core categories were extracted from the total codes. To clarify the core factors of the identified difficulties, these factors were categorized into three parts: 1) seriousness of students' mental health problems, 2) difficulties in obtaining understanding and cooperation of teachers and other school staff, and 3) difficulties in dealing with student mental health issues. Three approaches derived from the interviews to overcome the health counseling difficulties were: 1) support for student mental development, 2) buildup of cooperative relationship among teaching and other school staff, and 3) an organizational approach to student counseling. Conclusion: Health room service personnel clearly have difficulties in providing mental health counseling as such problems increase and the need for assistance grows. This suggests the necessity of more cooperation among everyone involved and an organized approach to student counseling.
