Early Intervention in Youth Mental Health
Are you a young person who experiences a mental health or substance use issue?
Do you care about a young person who does?
If you answer 'yes' to either question, you probably know the difficulties that can be associated with mental illness. It can potentially interrupt your study, work, social life and perhaps worst of all, your relationships with family and friends.
There is a lot of research about what works for young people who experience a mental health or substance use issue. But what does it all mean?
A recent edition of the Medical Journal of Australia was devoted to the issue of Early Intervention in Youth Mental Health. Here we summarise some of the most important messages from the journal.
It’s important to get help early
They say 'prevention is better than a cure'. It certainly is the case when looking after our mental health.
Australian researchers have studied a number of mental health issues that affect young people, including depression, substance use, psychosis, bipolar disorder and personality. This research shows that getting help early, or early intervention, is crucial.
What is Early Intervention?
Early intervention means accessing and using treatment services at the first sign that mental health problems may be emerging.
- For young people and their supporters, this means finding appropriate mental heath services or health professionals in the local community.
- For professionals who work with young people, this means working with young clients, learning about and understanding their needs and making sure they can access support that meets those needs.
Why is it so Important?
According to researchers in the Medical Journal of Australia, early intervention for young people with mental health problems has four main benefits:
- Early intervention enables young people to start treatment as soon as possible, when the symptoms of mental illness are not too disabling and ideally before the young person experiences any associated problems, such as difficulties concentrating at school or work.
- Early intervention helps young people to develop or build on the skills they need to manage their illness and continue functioning in other aspects of their lives (eg. with work, school, family or friends). For example, people with depression might use cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) which is based on the idea that moods/emotions are related to our thoughts and it explores thinking patterns and how they can affect our emotions, such as fear, in a negative and positive way, to prevent future episodes of feeling depressed or anxious and out of control.
- Early intervention focuses on comprehensive care of the whole person, rather than just treating symptoms. By working with young people to prevent the problems associated with mental illness, their needs can be identified and met by appropriate services.
- Finally, early intervention saves money. By focusing on preventing problems associated with mental illness – or at least catching them early before too much damage occurs - young people don’t have to become life-long consumers of mental health services.
Help is available
Research shows 75% of mental health disorders begin before the age of 25 years. But 70% of young people who experience mental health and substance use problems don’t seek help. This is especially the case for males, Indigenous people and young people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
What prevents young people from seeking help if they’re experiencing a mental health or substance use problem?
According to researchers in the Medical Journal of Australia, young people are less likely to seek help if they:
- Are experiencing symptoms of depression or suicidal thoughts;
- Have a negative view about seeking help;
- Have had a negative experience with sources of help in the past, or
- Believe that they don’t need anyone else’s help.
What influences a young person to seek help if they’re experiencing a mental health or substance use issue?
Knowing something about mental health issues and the sources of help available to manage them is important. Sometimes the language used by mental health services can be hard to understand, and the types of support they offer might be unclear. To make sure that young people can use services that are helpful, it is important to know about 3 things:
- The early ‘warning signs’ that a mental health issue may be emerging;
- The best types of help that are available, and
- How to access that help.
There are different ways to learn about these things – from media campaigns, from websites like headspace and Reach Out! and from smaller local programs targeted at young people and their supporters.
Young people are also more likely to seek help if they feel able to express their feelings – they need to feel confident to talk about what they’re going through. And that often means building a trusting relationship with people who can help. Younger adolescents are more likely to talk with their family, while friends and partners become more influential later on.
Young people with emerging mental health or substance use problems can also access professional help from GPs, youth workers or school counsellors. For serious forms of mental illness like psychosis, major depression and suicidal thinking, mental health specialists (like psychologists or psychiatrists) can also be an important source of help. Young people can get access to mental health specialists through GPs who can provide a referral (eg. a letter for specialist help).
We need a better way to support young people
It is important to correctly diagnose a mental illness for two reasons. Firstly, the correct diagnosis guides what the treatment should be and, secondly, it helps to predict what the outcomes might be.
Correctly diagnosing mental illness in young people can be difficult. This is because symptoms are emerging in the context of normal development, so figuring out what is a normal change in mood, or stress associated with a difficult situation, from the early signs of mental disorder can be difficult.