Detecting Muslim Students Mental Health with an Islamic Educational Approach using Machine Learning

Abstract

Mental health among university students has become a major concern in higher education, particularly in the post-pandemic era, which has left students facing various academic, social, and psychological pressures. Unfortunately, efforts for early detection of mental health issues on campus remain limited, especially in the context of Muslim students who live within an Islamic cultural framework. This study offers an innovative approach by integrating advanced machine learning technology with the depth of Islamic educational values to develop an early detection system that is not only accurate but also humanistic and contextually relevant. The dataset for this study was obtained through a survey of 127 students at Universitas Muhammadiyah Kudus, including variables related to psychological conditions and the intensity of religious practices, used to detect whether students experience mental health problems or maintain good mental health. The research methodology includes data collection, preprocessing, feature analysis, model development using classification algorithms such as Random Forest, SVM, KNN, and Decision Tree, model performance optimization using GridSearchCV, and evaluation. Evaluation of the four models indicated that prior to optimization, SVM and KNN achieved the best performance, both with an accuracy of 88.46%. After optimization with GridSearchCV, SVM became the top-performing model, achieving an accuracy improvement of more than 5%, reaching 94.05%. Feature analysis revealed that levels of anxiety, fatigue, and religious practices such as prayer and dhikr were the primary determinants in mapping students’ mental health conditions. These findings suggest that Islamic values such as tawakkul (trust in God), sabr (patience), and syukur (gratitude) are not merely theological concepts but can also serve as scientific instruments, converted into predictive features in data-driven technologies. This study demonstrates that an SVM model optimized with GridSearchCV is effective in detecting university students’ mental health and has the potential to serve as an early warning system in Islamic campus settings.