Predicting Adolescent Mental Health Service Use in a Prospective Record‐Linkage Study (original) (raw)

1999, Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

Objective: To test to what extent demographic variables and parent-reported problems and competencies in earlyadolescence predict incidence of mental health service use across a 5-year period in the general population. Method: Data on parent-reported problem behavior (Child Behavior Checklist [CBCll), gathered on 2,496 Dutch young adolescents, aged 10 to 12 years in 1989-1990, were linked to psychiatric case register data over the years 1990-1994. Cox proportional hazards models were used to predict the incidence of using mental health services from problem behavior, competencies, and demographic covar iates. Results: Almost all CBCl problem scales predicted the incidence of mental health service use significantly. The effect was constant over time for most scales , but it decreased over time for others . CBCl Activities, gender, and one-parent family were significant predictors after accounting for the problem levels. All effects were simila r for boys and girls. Conclusions: In many cases, there is a remar kable delay between the awareness of the adolescent's problems and seeking and/or receiving professional help. longitudinal studies that use continuous information on service use yield a more comprehensive picture of the utilization of mental health services than studies that aggregate the information over the follow-up period. J. Am. Acad. Child Ado/esc. Psychiatry, 1999, 38(9):1073-1080. Key Words: adolescence , mental health services, psych iatric case registers , psychopathology, Child Behavior Checklist.