• Posted May 26, 2026

Many U.S. College Students With Psychosis Are Not Receiving Treatment

The college years are prime time for the emergence of mental illnesses involving psychosis, according to a new study.

However, almost 60% of college students who seek mental health care after a psychotic episode do not get the recommended treatment, researchers recently reported in the journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology.

Going without even one of the recommended three components of treatment — counseling, therapy and medication — could have consequences, researchers warned.

“Early intervention and access to services such as therapy and medication in this population are important because it improves outcomes related to overall quality of life, school involvement, employment, symptom severity and relapse rate," lead author Clara Godoy-Henderson said in a news release. She's a graduate student in health services and policy research at the Boston University School of Public Health.

It's estimated that about 3% of Americans are affected by psychosis, a condition in which individuals lose touch with reality and may experience delusions or hallucinations, researchers said in background notes.

Delays in seeking care are common: The Boston team says that people with with psychosis wait an average of 17 months between symptom onset and contact with health professionals.

In the study, Godoy-Henderson looked at responses from more than 2,800 U.S. college students, all of whom were diagnosed with psychosis. The students took part in the Healthy Minds Study between 2015-2024, the nation’s largest survey of student mental health.

Nearly 60% said they believed they did require help dealing with their psychosis. Identifying this need for help was crucial to a person's going out and seeking it, the research team found. 

Forms of assistance sought over the year-long study were therapy/counseling and antipsychotic medications, as well as informal forms of support. The latter included support from friends, loved ones, roommates, campus staff, religious counselors or support groups, the researchers explained.

One big treatment gap: A full 60% of study participants did not meet current recommended guidelines for a combination of antipsychotic medications and therapy, the researchers found.

So while 8 in every 10 students interviewed said they'd sought counseling or therapy over the prior 12 months, only 4 in 10 had taken an antipsychotic medication. 

It's not clear why so few of the students obtained medication, but the Boston team thinks stigma around mental health issues could play a role.

Support from friends and/or medical professionals seemed to up the odds that a student with psychosis got recommended meds, the study found. 

"Support systems play a crucial role in identifying early psychosis symptoms and help navigate mental health services, which may be an important factor in treatment initiation,” Godoy-Henderson said in the release.

She is convinced that more research is needed “to better understand the barriers to antipsychotic medication to improve poor outcomes, such as delayed care, and high relapse rates in individuals with psychosis."

More information

Find out more about psychosis at the Cleveland Clinic.

SOURCE: Boston University School of Public Health, news release, May 20, 2026