Apathetic and withdrawing students in Japanese universities--with regard to Hikikomori and student apathy.

Unlabelled: In recent years, the increasing number of young people withdrawing from society, so called Hikikomori, has been a cause for concern in Japan. These are people who stay at home and do not work or attend school for more than 6 months. Most of them are not regarded as having any psychotic illness such as schizophrenia. With respect to college students, "student apathy" syndrome has been discussed since the 1960's.

Objectives: To evaluate the proportion of apathetic and withdrawing students among those who leave school, take off, or repeat academic years; to see how these situations have changed in the last 20 years; and to identify the characteristics of such high risk groups so as to provide them with effective psychiatric support services.

Methods: First I examined the mean rates of the academic events mentioned above among students of Japanese national universities. I then compared those rates statistically between males and females, and among 6 groups according to gender and academic majors. Then the reasons for those academic events were examined.

Results: The rates of each event have continually increased over the last 21 years, and a considerable number of the students were shown to have been in a state of "student apathy." Male 4-year course students had a high risk, especially male science course students had serious problems.