There also will be locations from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Brody Square, the Gallery at Snyder and Phillips halls and the dining halls at Holden Hall and Hubbard Hall.

Talitha Easterly, a psychologist at MSU Counseling Center, said in an email that based on the 2010 National Healthy Minds Study — an annual national survey of mental health issues among college students — 13 percent of MSU students screened positive for major depression.

At the screenings, students also can get information from the center about stress prevention and other mental illnesses.

Early stages of depression and other mental illnesses including bipolar disorder, general
anxiety disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder can be identified with the screenings, said
Katherine Cruise, director of communications and marketing at Screening for Mental Health Inc., the national hosts of the event.

“(Depression) is one of the most common mental health disorders,” Cruise said. “Nineteen million people each year are diagnosed with depression.”

College students typically are at the age of onset for depression and other conditions, Cruise said.
When kids leave the house for the first time, a collection of financial, social and academic pressures can weigh students down, she said.

“Screening for depression is trying to differentiate between normal stress, like finals time, and what is something that’s more serious that would require speaking with a counselor or doctor,” she said.

Having this resource available on campus is important to students’ well-being, said Helen Kaibara, a graduate student.

“Especially for new students, I feel like depression and anxiety constitute major problems that interrupt with school work, the purpose of being here, and often they’re not given enough consideration,” she said.

Mental Health Inc. is a nonprofit organization based in Boston that created National Depression Screening Day in 1991.

This year there are more than 1,000 sites across the country hosting the free depression screenings including colleges, community organizations and military installations, Cruise said. It’s important for people who have thoughts about depression to catch it early and get a screening, education sophomore Andrew Ferguson said.

“People come (here) from different areas and backgrounds, and you don’t know if someone has a mental illness (without a screening),” he said.

Cruise said most people look at mental illness as a character flaw or personal weakness when in reality it is similar to a physical illness in that it responds to treatment.

“If you broke your leg you wouldn’t say, ‘I’m going to tough it out and hope for the best,’” she said.
“You would go to the doctor and say, ‘Fix my leg.’”