Young People’s Coping Strategies When Dealing With Their Own and a Friend’s Symptoms of Poor Mental Health: A Qualitative Study (original) (raw)
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Young people's help-seeking for mental health problems
… in Mental Health, 2005
This paper summarises an ambitious research agenda aiming to uncover the factors that affect help-seekingamong young people for mental health problems. The research set out to consider why young people, andparticularly young males, do not seek help when they are in psychological distress or suicidal; howprofessional services be made more accessible and attractive to young people; the factors that inhibit andfacilitate help-seeking; and how community gatekeepers can support young people to access services tohelp with personal and emotional problems. A range of studies was undertaken in New South Wales,Queensland and the ACT, using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Data from a total of 2721young people aged 14-24 years were gathered, as well as information from some of the communitygatekeepers to young people’s mental health care.Help-seeking was measured in all the studies using the General Help Seeking Questionnaire (Wilson,Deane, Ciarrochi & Rickwood, 2005), which measures future help-seeking intentions and, throughsupplementary questions, can also assess prior help-seeking experience. Many of the studies also measuredrecent help-seeking behaviour using the Actual Help Seeking Questionnaire. The types of mental healthproblems examined varied across the studies and included depressive symptoms, personal-emotionalproblems, and suicidal thoughts.The help-seeking process was conceptualised using a framework developed during the research program.This framework maintains that help-seeking is a process of translating the very personal domain of psychological distress to the interpersonal domain of seeking help. Factors that were expected to facilitateor inhibit this translation process were investigated. These included factors that determine awareness of thepersonal domain of psychological distress and that affect the ability to articulate or express this personaldomain to others, as well as willingness to disclose mental health issues to other people.The results are reported in terms of: patterns of help-seeking across adolescence and young adulthood; therelationship of help-seeking intentions to behaviour; barriers to seeking help—lack of emotionalcompetence, the help-negation effect related to suicidal thoughts, negative attitudes and beliefs about help-seeking and fear of stigma; and facilitators of seeking help—emotional competence, positive pastexperience, mental health literacy, and supportive social influences. The paper considers the implications of the findings for the development of interventions to encourage young people to seek help for their mentalhealth problems, and concludes by identifying gaps in the help-seeking research and literature andsuggesting future directions.
2017
Mental health difficulties amongst children and young people increasingly dominate the British government agenda. Despite the 2014 Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice extending statutory provision up to the age of 25, the mental health needs of older young people are often overlooked in educational guidance. For many young people, the impact of depression has wide ranging social and economic implications; therefore it is important to enable early identification and intervention. Understanding self-report processes may be one way of enabling this. From this perspective, the present review aimed to investigate what narratives young people use to communicate depression. Eight studies were identified and assessed using qualitative and quantitative frameworks, and reported using PRISMA guidelines. Findings provide useful information about issues, methods and processes in communicating depression as well as perceptions about effective support. Implications for future...
Journal of Public Health, 2020
Background Preventative interventions may be effective in reducing and preventing symptoms of mental ill health in children and young people. However, there is a paucity of research in this area that explores the views of young people. This paper reports on a qualitative study to inform the future development of attractive and appropriate early and preventative school-based mental health interventions. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 12 young people aged 14–17 in North East England. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, anonymised and analysed following a thematic approach. Results Four key themes were identified, relevant to those providing, designing and commissioning early and preventative mental health interventions in schools: ‘mental health literacy’, ‘risk factors for wellbeing decline’, ‘experience of school-based support’ and ‘recommendations for future support’. Conclusions Young people have varying levels of mental healt...
The aim of our study was to examine early adolescents' perspectives on and experiences of coping with the problems, difficult situations, and feelings that can arise in daily life in England. Our study draws on the first time point of semistructured interviews (N = 82) conducted with 9 to 12 year olds across six regions of England as part of HeadStart, a mental health and well-being program. Using thematic analysis, eight main themes were derived from the dataset relating to participants' coping behavior: activities and strategies, disengaging from problems, standing up for yourself, acceptance of problems, social support, HeadStart support, other professional support, and hiding feelings or problems. The findings enhance our understanding of how early adolescents manage their problems outside of professional
Special Issue on “Qualitative Inquiry in Mental Health Research with Young People”
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2021
This editorial to the Special Issue on Qualitative Inquiry in Mental Health Research with Young People provides an overview of the importance of qualitative inquiry to the field of child and youth mental health. The issue highlights research using qualitative methods to depict the lived experiences and contribution of young people in areas that reflect important mental health concerns, ranging from anxiety, non-suicidal self-injury, positive resilience in young people in times of crisis, and drug and alcohol treatment.
When and how do young people seek professional help for mental health problems?
The Medical journal of Australia, 2007
Despite the high prevalence of mental health problems and disorders that develop in adolescence and early adulthood, young people tend to not seek professional help. Young men and young people from Indigenous and ethnic minority groups tend to be those most reluctant to seek help. Young people are more inclined to seek help for mental health problems if they: have some knowledge about mental health issues and sources of help; feel emotionally competent to express their feelings; and have established and trusted relationships with potential help providers. Young people are less likely to seek help if they: are experiencing suicidal thoughts and depressive symptoms; hold negative attitudes toward seeking help or have had negative past experiences with sources of help; or hold beliefs that they should be able to sort out their own mental health problems on their own. Young people may seek help through talking to their family and friends, with family being more important for younger ado...