News And Events

Orygen welcomes the release of the Report on the Second Australian Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing. The survey results confirm that mental ill-health in young people needs to addressed as a major public health priority, and although significant recent gains have been made in improving access to care for young people with mental ill-health, unacceptably high numbers of young people still do not receive the support that they need.

Orygen has identified some of the key findings of the survey:

Need remains high: 14.4% of 12-17 year olds had an experience p anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, ADHD or conduct disorder in the previous year. 44.1% of 12-17 year olds with a mental illness experienced mild mental ill-health, 32.8% experienced moderate mental ill-health and 23.1% experienced severe illness. 3.2% of 12-17 year olds had previously made a suicide attempt (2.4% in the previous year).

Access to services appears to be improving: 72.8% of 12-17 year olds with major depressive disorder, ADHD or conduct disorder used services in previous 12 months (compared to 35.8% in previous 6 months in 1998). These improvements suggests that initiatives such as headspace are improving access to care for young people with mental ill-health. Even though the survey was conducted at a time when many communities did not have access to headspace services, 13% of 13-17 year olds with any mental illness (by parental report) received a headspace service.

Too many young people are still not getting the support they need: 85,000 young people aged 12-17 assessed as having mental illness did not use services in the previous year. Only 59.2% of 13-17 year olds who reported making a suicide plan had used services in the previous 12 months. Although access to care is relatively better in young people with more severe illnesses, there remain concerns about the appropriateness of the care that young people receive. Only 34.6% of 12-17 year olds report having their needs fully met and 20.7% did not have their needs met at all. These findings highlight the concerning nature of a trend noted in the National Mental Health Commission’s recent review of disinvestment by State governments in specialist mental health care.

Impacts beyond health are significant: The survey highlights the impact of mental ill-health on young people’s educational trajectories. The average days absent from school in the previous 12 months for 12-17 year olds was 20 days for anxiety disorders and 23 days for major depressive disorder. The survey also reports that children and adolescents with mental ill-health were more likely to have poorer school performance and to like school less than peers without mental ill-health. These findings support
the emphasis of youth mental health services on providing educational and vocational support.

Young people adopt a range of positive self-help strategies: The survey reports that young people aged 13-17 engaged in a number of self-help strategies to help with emotional or behavioural problems, the most popular being doing more things they enjoy (45.1%), doing more exercise/sport (37.9%), seeking help from friends (24.4%) and improving diet (23.2%). These findings emphasise the potential impact of public education and mental health literacy campaigns targeted at young people.

As The National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, Orygen stands ready to work with Governments and the youth mental health sector to improve access to quality services that produce better outcomes for young people with mental ill-health.

Read the Second Australian Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing.