Mental Health and Higher Education Institutions: Next Steps to Well-being

Abstract

Learning to be someone in today’s world requires training, knowledge, adaptive skills, differentiated skills, and mastery of instrumental and advanced technological tools to manage complex, new, and crucial problems that societies face. Citizens need to satisfy their basic needs, and they want to feel fulfilled. These are determinants of mental health/health, essential goods for the growth and evolution of humanity, and for the survival of the planet that shelters it.

The objectives of this chapter are: (1) reflect on the influence of mental health/health in high-level training processes, which require the student to mobilize physical and mental capabilities and functions; (2) realize to what extent the use of digital technology is an essential tool for learning and developing skills for higher education students; (3) addressing the question: Are higher education institutions (HEIs) and professors prepared for the challenges they face today? And, at the confluence of the previous three: (4) analyze the health/mental health interconnections, the use of digital technologies and training paths, as pillars of human development and the progress of societies.

In HEIs, there is evidence of the intersection of students’ learning abilities with the contexts that are favourable to them, namely, due to the possibility of finding space to create, develop potentials, acquire high-level knowledge and skills, present themselves to society as reliable, credible, and promising professionals for success in the organizations they form part of.

For the preparation of this exploratory and reflective chapter, the collaboration of some higher education teachers in the Autonomous Region of Madeira (RAM) was requested, also basing it on their own experience and knowledge acquired as a teacher, researcher, and expert in the field of mental health.

The perspective presented for reflection and analysis is limited by the look and the way we interrogate and interpret the realities where we operate, for these same reasons, imbued with subjectivity.

Citation

Fragoeiro, I.M.A.R. (2023), "Mental Health and Higher Education Institutions: Next Steps to Well-being", Vaz de Almeida, C. and Lytras, M.D. (Ed.) Technology-Enhanced Healthcare Education: Transformative Learning for Patient-centric Health (Emerald Studies in Higher Education, Innovation and Technology), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 35-46. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83753-598-920231003