Stopped, Delayed or Discouraged: What Are the Barriers for Adolescents Fully Engaging in the Mental Health System?
- PDF / 437,062 Bytes
- 30 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 89 Downloads / 127 Views
Stopped, Delayed or Discouraged: What Are the Barriers for Adolescents Fully Engaging in the Mental Health System? Monique Platell 1
1
1
& Angus Cook & Colleen Fisher & Karen Martin
1
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract The aim of this study is to identify factors that stopped, discouraged or delayed mental health help-seeking in adolescents. An Online survey of 113 adolescents aged 14–18 years old, living in Perth, Western Australia, was conducted. For participants who had not yet accessed a mental health service, the top barrier was ‘Having no-one who could help me get professional care’ (62%). For participants who had previously accessed a mental health service, the top barrier was ‘Previous experiences with a mental health service were not helpful’ (63%). Major reported barriers in this population included financial costs, negative past experiences and having no one to help access professional care. Keywords Mental health . Adolescent . Help-seeking . Barriers . Mental health services Despite the high prevalence of mental health issues in adolescents in Australia, the actual utilisation of professional mental health services remains relatively low. The Child and Adolescent section of the Second National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing (NSMHW) from 2013 to 14 indicated that 560,000 (14%) children and adolescents aged 4– 17 years experienced a mental issue in the preceding 12 months, but 44% of this group had not used any services for emotional or behavioural issues in that period (Lawrence et al. 2015).
* Monique Platell [email protected] Angus Cook [email protected] Colleen Fisher [email protected] Karen Martin [email protected]
1
School of Population and Global Health, The University of Western Australia, M431, 35 Stirling Hwy, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia
International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction
These gaps in service access are likely to worsen given the increasing proportion of young people meeting the criteria for a probable serious mental health issue. A recent Five Year Youth Mental Health Report by Mission Australia estimated a rise in prevalence rates from 18.7 to 22.8% between 2012 and 2016 (Mission Australian 2017). With the onset of many lifelong mental health issues beginning in adolescence (Kessler et al. 2005; Mission Australian 2017) and the often profound implications for on an individual’s life course (including social and educational outcomes), early intervention is crucial (Fergusson and Woodward 2002). Previous research has shown that the barriers for adolescents’ successful access to—and engagement (continued involvement with recommended therapeutic intervention) with— mental health services are wide-ranging and complex (Bonabi et al. 2016; Rickwood et al. 2007, 2005, 2015; Sheffield et al. 2004; Wu et al. 2001; Zwaanswijk et al. 2003). Individuallevel factors associated with access to mental health care include beliefs and perceptions around mental health treatment, emotional c
Data Loading...
