MUTSPRUNG is a joint project funded by the BMFTR funding priority "Science and Higher Education Research (WiHo)", which is being carried out by eight universities and the Graduate Center in North Rhine-Westphalia. The project examines individual and contextual risk and protective factors in relation to the mental health of students and doctoral candidates. The aim is to identify personal and structural resilience factors and thus derive recommendations for practical action.
Fachhochschule Dortmund is supporting the project as a cooperation partner. The CSR Office in the form of Sebastian Kreimer is responsible for the organizational management. The main task is to organize the survey in cooperation with the health management department (Ann-Kathrin Zobel) and the evaluation office (Magareta Nasched). Prof. Dr. Stefanie Kuhlenkamp is the contact person for the content of the joint project at Fachhochschule Dortmund.
The joint project consists of four sub-projects (TP) with different questions and various quantitative and qualitative methods that enable a comprehensive representation of the mental health of students and doctoral candidates.
SP 1 (Bochum University of Applied Sciences) analyzes study and doctoral conditions that are conducive to health and develops requirements and recommendations for creating these health-promoting conditions/a health-promoting culture at universities.
SP 2 (Münster University of Applied Sciences) investigates the connection between mental stress and health problems and individual protective and risk factors of students and doctoral candidates. In addition to socio-demographic data, this also includes the experience of loneliness, the tendency to rumination and mental health literacy.
SP 3 (Ruhr University Bochum (RUB)) deals with the effects of potentially vulnerable phases and transitions in the student life cycle on mental health and focuses on the potential of student health management, digital interventions for mental health, the influence of spatial factors at universities and potential inequality factors.
SP 4 (Catholic University of Applied Sciences North Rhine-Westphalia (katho)) examines psychological barriers to participation in studies. The focus is on the examinations to be taken, the digitalization of studies, social relationships and systems of socio-cultural events.
Thanks to the involvement of Fachhochschule Dortmund and other participating universities (FH Südwestfalen, HS Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, TH Georg Agricola Bochum (THGA), Hochschule Darmstadt and RheinMain) as well as the Graduate Center NRW and the Doctoral Center for Social Work, almost 130,000 students and over 5,000 doctoral candidates can be reached. This enables a comprehensive representation of the heterogeneous life realities of students and doctoral candidates from different disciplines and regions or in different phases of the student life cycle. Further tasks of the Fachhochschule Dortmund within the framework of the joint project are the participation in the development of the instruments, the discussion of the results as well as the participation in the recommendations for action for practice and their dissemination.
