The suffering artist — Depression and anxiety symptoms in music students: Understanding hidden influences and planning effective intervention

Musicians show higher depression prevalence compared to the normal population. Little is known, however, to what extent standardised contributory factors affect musicians in their early careers when still at university or music college. Furthermore, beliefs surrounding the creative mystique, in essence that musical creativity and accomplishment are closely associated with mental illness, promote self-stigma and impede prevention and treatment compliance. This thesis investigated depression prevalence and selected depression predictors in a student population and examined if professional identity with being a musician could be an additional depression predictor. One hundred and two participants under- and postgraduate students from various institutions and with varying primary subjects participated in an online survey featuring standardised scales for depression and selected predictors. Students were allocated into three groups depending on their main study subject and musical training: music college students, university musicians (music and non-music university students with comparable levels of music professional identity and musical training) and university non-musicians (no professional musical identity and training in music). Music college students showed significantly higher depression prevalence compared to the two other groups. University non-musicians presented significantly higher depression predictor(s). A hierarchical regression and a tree analysis found that depression was best predicted with a combination of predictors (high anxiety and low burnout of students with academic staff). A further study examined how professional musicians experienced a (medically diagnosed) depression. Taken together, results demonstrate that standardised instruments, rather than profiling by profession, offer a more differentiated and therefore promising depression risk analysis for musicians in training in higher education. Furthermore, they underscore the relevance of the culture surrounding music learning and the musical profession, and play an important role in how depression is experienced. These findings support the use of selective depression prevention programmes, delivered in so-called safe locations, that target dysfunctional ideas and beliefs.